{"id":33213,"date":"2024-10-28T09:08:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T14:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=33213"},"modified":"2024-10-28T09:08:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T14:08:24","slug":"i-make-an-issue-of-contentment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/28\/i-make-an-issue-of-contentment\/","title":{"rendered":"I Make An Issue Of Contentment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Patrice Lewis writes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rural-revolution.com\/2024\/10\/an-issue-of-contentment.html\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">An Issue of Contentment<\/a> and quotes a book:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For some reason that phrase \u2013 she was happy then and didn&#8217;t know it \u2013 stayed with me. And it made me wonder: how many of us are happy but don&#8217;t appreciate it, know it, or realize it?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Happiness&#8221; is such a loaded and multi-faceted word that no one can really define what it means for them. It&#8217;s different for everyone. Happiness can be found even in places and circumstances you may not like; but it&#8217;s often there, buried among the less enjoyable parts. Facets of happiness (contentment, satisfaction, pride of achievement, etc.) can all contribute to the overall qualities of the emotion.<\/p>\n<p>I think what haunts me about the notion of being happy and not realizing it, is how many of us let overall happiness slide through our fingers because we&#8217;re too concerned with little things we don&#8217;t like. Anyone who takes their health for granted and then loses it, for example, will appreciate how much happier they were when their health was good.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why this moment of contentment was so powerful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This little bit of John Hughes&#8217; best movie, <em>She&#8217;s Having a Baby<\/em>, has stuck with me over the years:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ix--DhgmBCU?si=k0J_uJqnKoXOoB0F\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As you know, gentle reader, I struggle with feeling contentment.  I have given it plenty of thought this summer.  I&#8217;ve made a habit the last two years to step into the pool in the evenings if only for a couple of minutes, <em>because I have a pool<\/em>.  And I&#8217;ve watched the sunset and have really, really tried to be content, enumerating things that I have, including the things I would never have dreamed of in my youth.  <\/p>\n<p>I suppose it&#8217;s because I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve earned what I have, nor that I have much control over whether I can keep it.  Maybe the next book on mindfulness will cure me, but perhaps not.  Perhaps my efforts in something will yield the intended result (aside from a cleaner house after the weekend or trimmed weeds in the summer or even a freshly painted room sometime when I get around to it).  Most likely, I&#8217;ll bet on the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patrice Lewis writes An Issue of Contentment and quotes a book: For some reason that phrase \u2013 she was happy then and didn&#8217;t know it \u2013 stayed with me. And it made me wonder: how many of us are happy but don&#8217;t appreciate it, know it, or realize it? &#8220;Happiness&#8221; is such a loaded and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33215,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33213\/revisions\/33215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}