Practicing Contentment

What would it feel like to be content in this moment?

Even though my breath isn’t smooth, my hip hurts, and the house sparrows have built a nest in my fireplace vent that I have no idea how to extricate?

Even if it’s too hot and there’s not enough time and the cucumber has a bad spot all through the middle of it?

Could I feel content simply with the sensation of the blessed air conditioning gently moving across my skin?

Could I feel content that my salvia, which I thought had died, has suddenly begun to produce new flowers just in time for the hummingbird migration?

A juvenile male hummingbird has arrived and is taking his chances sneaking into the feeder, hoping to evade the ever-watchful adult male who has been here all summer.

I recognize contentment mingled with delight as the feeling I have when I am absorbed in watching the little boys chase each other around.

Birds often seem content to simply sit on a branch and preen. Nothing to do, for at least a moment. Just a little self-care or maybe self-soothing. I could use more of that!

In this state, their bodies soften, and their eyes relax. They are not “on alert”, not scanning for bugs or other birds. This is the state I want to embody.

Birds don’t remain in this state all the time, but they return to it again and again. I want to return to it again and again, building a pathway so it is easily accessed.

Could it be that contentment is a practice, and that I have been practicing discontent my entire life?

I have lived a life of striving and “trying hard”, which our culture seems to think are virtues. Contentment is definitely not my default setting. But perhaps, just perhaps, it can be cultivated.

How often does a conversation start with all that is wrong? How often do we actually share the small moments where we are or were content?

A little voice inside my head wants to equate complacency with contentment, but I suspect that is a false equivalence. It wants to throw in words like lazy and unmotivated as icing on the distasteful cake. Whew, the programming is strong.

Constant notifications, “breaking news,” and the ever-pressing “attention economy” tell us we should never be content. Perhaps then, contentment is a form of rebellion. A way to say, “you can’t have my peace.”

Maybe contentment can be cultivated like gratitude. Not by ignoring the challenges, but by finding moments of settling amidst them. Maybe contentment makes gratitude easier to access - or the other way around.

Rather than asking, “Am I content right now?” I have started periodically asking, “What if I were content right now?” It’s an invitation that can be met honestly while still opening the door to possibility.

Where do you find contentment in your day? In your week? In your life? What does contentment feel like?

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