Contentment has to be one of the best feelings imaginable. "Content" is defined as state of peaceful happiness... to be satisfied. I am a naturally very high energy, outgoing, and happy person; however I am not a content person. Truth be told, there are few very times that I have been content in my life.
The few times I knew I was content were because of how peaceful I felt mentally and how my heart rested; slowly, but strong. I miss that feeling immensely... the brief contentment I experienced is long gone. Contentment is not that overwhelming feeling of bliss; but a quiet yet powerful, satisfied feeling. I perceive happiness like a sprint and contentment as a marathon. Happiness can come in short bursts, but contentment lasts -- it is steady. It is a foundation.
Last weekend my grandmother made a comment that she was worried about me because I am never content. She is afraid that nothing will ever truly make me happy. I am thankful for the bond I have with my grandmother because above anything in life, I appreciate honesty. I do not know of a lot of 25 year old women who are single and on their own in life who are content. Yes, I am happy. No, I am not in anyway of the word content. I have gone through and I am living out the hardest year of my life. I still struggle more than I want to admit to my friends, family, and readers. Writing is my truth, and way of trying to understand my feelings and problems entirely, and contemplate how to resolve them.
This year has been so difficult for me because of the amount of change that required monumental adjustments. My life changed drastically. I have focused so much time and energy into growing and opening myself up in this blog, long hours at my job, losing 65 pounds, and slowly mend the pieces of my heart back together. When someone is working that hard to try and grow themselves to be independently successful, how can one be content?
I believe the comment was made to me because of the significant downturn I took at the end of June with anxiety and depression. I burned myself out to the point of rock bottom, and it took a month to even feel somewhat like myself again. Additionally, I slightly exasperated myself over the past couple of weeks. Some of my closest readers may have noticed since my blog posts were abnormally scarce. Fortunately, I quickly realized what was happening to me and tried to correct my health before I had a repeat.
Right now in my life, I do not know how to be content. I cannot tell myself that where I am right now is where I am going to be forever. I want more; and I want to accomplish my dreams. Sadly, my dreams are extremely competitive and if I want to achieve them, it requires a lot of sacrifice and hard ass work; both of which I have not done until this year.
As a result of trying so hard this year to improve myself and get to where I want to be, I have not enjoyed where I am. I have not enjoyed my journey of growing and hard work. Instead I have constantly told myself how I have to keep doing more. I have been telling myself that because I do not devote as much time as I should, that I am never going to accomplish anything. It has been very hard to properly delegate time in all of my necessary areas: work, blogging, my book, my weight loss, taking care of my home with all of the errands, cleaning, etc., rest, and a social life (because we all need to have some type of pleasure and enjoyment).
That comment has stuck with me over the course of the past week. It is true, and it is not something I am proud of. I do want to be content. I want to enjoy where I am while I get to where I am going. Because if I am not happy and content with where I am now, I will miss out on so much in life. I may become so miserable that I do not even notice that where I am at is always where I wanted to be. I could miss so many opportunities. I could pass up so many chances to make memories.
I desperately want to accomplish my dreams, but I am constantly terrified because I am one woman from small town North Carolina amongst a sea of beautiful, talented people who are better than me and want the same that I do. It's intimidating and disheartening. Even above that still, I truly want to enjoy the journey of my life.
I am now seeing and learning that if you do not enjoy today, how negative the consequences can be; and I do not want anyone else to experience this. One reason why I do open myself up on my blog is for the hope that at least one person can learn from my mistakes and avoid making them. I let loneliness engulf me. I let my anxiety take over my conscious; awful sweats, sleepless nights, racing heart-rate, and chronic fatigue. I wake up most mornings feeling like the day before I ran a marathon. I just took 7 days off from training and even still, every morning I woke up uncommonly sore. Often I stay on the verge of tears and just one negative thing could snowball the entire day. My weight loss has stalled for 8 weeks now. My skin is constantly breaking out. To sum all of this up, most days I feel like an emotional freaking mess.
I want to change: I want to be content without being complacent. I want to enjoy my journey. I want to cherish today. I want to be more thankful for what I have, and what I have accomplished. I know this is going to be hard, but I am really going to try. I am the only one who can make this happen; it is solely up to me and my mind. It is up to my attitude and my way of thinking. If I want to live a positive, happy life; I have to have a positive, happy way of thinking.
Faith. I started going to church at the beginning of July and I love it. It is my time with God and it is a recharge to my heart and soul. However, recently, I have not had any faith in my life. It pains me to admit that. I want to have faith. I want to believe God knows my heart, struggles, and inner demons, and that things will get better. Most days I feel too exhausted to exude this faith, but I am working on this.
Rest. Sleep and resting the mind is essential to anyone's well being. I have not been sleeping well lately because of my anxiety attacks, but I am improving this by getting in bed earlier to read, I started a journal (old school journal with pen and paper), and take melatonin on nights that I feel I need it.
Fun Activities. I try to at least do 2-3 fun activities a week. I wish desperately I could travel more and "get away", but until I can, I do the best with what I have available. Whether it is going out for dinner and drinks, a movie, painting, hiking, or massages, I want to do more things that give me pleasure.
Believing in myself. I want to make the best of everyday that I have. I want to stop putting myself down. "Rome was not built in a day" and I need to tell myself this. If I stay organized and delegate my tasks, and just do that best I can everyday, that is enough. Doing the best I can where get me to where I want to go.
Think Positive. I taught myself the power of positive thinking when I was 14 years old; and since then, my life has never been the same. I will elaborate on that in a future blog post, but it changed my life for the better -- better than I ever thought possible. However, I found that as I have gotten older, it gets harder. But I have two choices: see the good in life or see the bad. Focus on the positive or focus on the negative. The choices are up to me. Studies have proven time and time again that negative reinforcement is NOT the way to success.
I still have a lot of growing to do. I am still weathering this long storm. I want to keep trying; I just want to be happier. I want to be content. A happy person is a successful person. A happy person is a creative person. I want to do more, I want to do better, but none of that is possible if I am not happy. In order to be happy, I have got to start loving where I am right now and being thankful for the present.
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