Contentment Is A Radical act

Earlier this evening, I sat in the cheap plastic adirondack chair in my backyard sipping on a big icy glass of sparking water with tons of sliced lemons (my very favorite daytime summer beverage) watching two chipmunks scurry around the ugly enormous pile of brush left behind by our home's previous owners.

Our yard is a mess of lumpy gopher holes and dead grass and randomly placed rhododendron bushes, with an ever-evolving collection of unearthed debris of the most bizarre variety (including, once, an intact snow globe).

We've done a few things to clean things up a bit, but honestly, we just haven't had the combination of time, disposable income, and priority to begin bringing the vision we have for this space to life.

And I certainly wasn't going to get started today.

Because here's the thing: I don't want to spend my entire life chasing and running and needing everything to happen right this instant.

Behind the hideous brush pile and the world's most adorable chipmunks, there is a forest full of tall, beautiful trees.

And this afternoon, the sun was pouring through them like something straight out of a fairy tale.

And the robin whose nest is in the Japanese camellia bush next to my studio shed seemed to be playing with the spotted towhee that likes to kick the seed out of our bird feeder.

And the breeze was cool, but the sun on my face was warm, and between the intermittent cars going by, all I could hear was the rustle of the leaves.

And I chose to feel content.

There are a million things on my to-do list, all with varying degrees of urgency and importance.

And I need to do them.

And I will do them.

But it matters to take time for peace.

It matters to take time for beauty and birdsong and to turn our faces to the sunshine and feel it.

Doing good work matters a great deal to me.

I get enormous satisfaction from a job well done.

The work that makes my living and the work that makes my home.

It energizes and fuels me.

AND

Living a good life matters a great deal to me.

Pausing and noticing and feeling the pleasures large and small that make up my right now.

Not postponing the joy to be found until there's nicer lawn furniture or the deck has been built or the brush pile hauled off.

In a world that is constantly pushing us toward attitudes of instant gratification, choosing contentment is a radical act.

Allowing the things we're building to take time, whether they're businesses or relationships or communities or, you know, back yards...this is where sustainability lives.

This is where we live.

This is when we live.

Right now.

I didn't stay in that plastic chair all evening.

Other things beckoned and called to be attended to.

But the twenty minutes I sat there filled me up and made me human.

It restored my sense of grace (and humor).

It reminded me that contentment doesn't require perfection, it requires attention.

There's a difference.

Where are you finding contentment right now?