Our Current State of Affairs

Oh how easy it is to be dissatisfied with our current state of affairs.

If truly analyzed it could be argued that the average persons every day is based on a motivation to get somewhere other than where they presently are.

The here and now is not treated as the goal in most every-day language.

It is elsewhere,

over there,

tomorrow,

next year,

when,

if,

then.

It is no wonder then that we are always chasing something, or to be put even more acutely— buying something.

The perfect mate, the ideal body, the dream job, the skin care product that will make us look flawless, the jacket that will complete our wardrobe, the coffee that will fuel us the best, the supplement that will make us feel better.

How is it that conversations so rarely center around “So, what is consistent and the same and good?” and are conversely “What is new and exciting?”

It’s a natural progression of life of course, newness and change are more or less inevitable and of course not to be vilified in their essence.

But I do wonder at the type of language we carry with us in our day to day and how it, however indirectly, contributes to our dissatisfaction with our lives.

“Enough” is an elusive concept at best.

Less is not more, this is not that, and here is not there.
More, that and there being the goals, or so we’ve been told since the day we were born.

But of course progress and change in and of themselves aren’t bad. And of course there is a healthy amount of both needed in our lives to be able to say that we are living well and responsibly (though no one is checking in on or caring as much about that as we think they are..)

To be able to hold the present in your hands and say that it is, regardless of all else, enough is the goal it seems— while also holding a determination, albeit an unattached one, to betterment and dreams.

So I pose a question — if you have even gotten this far in this rambling prose — what defines enough for you?

What attributes are needed to determine a state of contentment that you need to feel happy and healthy?

I think that is the very nature of what my day to day has entailed these last few years.

Figuring that out.

All the while I have been, of course, not immune to the onslaught of messages every day that say
“You need something other than what you presently have. You need to be somewhere other than where you presently are.”

In fact I was recently talking with a friend and after an hour long conversation that involved how we were both working on this, and striving for that, they said: “Well… what if we’re already doing it. What if this current state of affairs is the one that we are meant to be in and this is enough?”

It stopped me in my tracks, thinking about this idea.

Thinking that me, as I am right now, is exactly who I am supposed to be and that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

And that really, right here, right now, this— is enough.