As I sit here, listening to the drilling and banging of a house under construction, not just any house, my house, I have absolutely no idea where to begin this blog today.  My cat Summer is laying on a pillow next to the computer, trying desperately to sleep but every time the door opens or a drills goes on, her purr turns off and she gets up to look around. My cats are funny creatures. Like most other animals, they just care about the basics; eating and sleeping. Sometimes she flops on her back so I will rub her belly. Sometimes her brother Rocky will bring me a toy so we can play fetch(yes, they are cats), but mostly they are simple creatures, who enjoy the love and attention their humans give them, but are pretty independent and content. Isn’t it funny how we humans are not usually content and we just crave so much more than these animals do? Rocky is always looking to be fed, and we did go through a brief period when he was waking me at 4:30 am every morning to eat, which I thankfully nipped in the bud with the help of my trusty spray bottle, wouldn’t it be nice if we could train our brains to be content and satisfied that easily? Not content with my kids, spray me in the face. Not happy with my spouse, spray me again. Grumpy, irritated, anxious, melancholy, spray, spray, spray, spray. I’m actually getting a visual of this in my brain right now, and I imagine this would be pretty funny to see but I imagine the results would not be long lasting change of habits, routines, or thoughts.

Sometimes I feel like the more I have the less content I feel. Then I look around and wonder how in the world I can feel this way when people are getting by on far less, people who are missing their spouse or want to be married, people who have lost a child or are childless, people who are between jobs or just barely scraping by. There is so much hurt, disappointment, and sadness in this world, and for some reason we tend to focus on those negatives instead of on our blessings. I need a reset button in my brain so when I start to get all grumbly I can activate it and it can taser me into contentment.

Not only do I struggle with it, but my kids, oh my word, my kids. My kids are being raised in such a narcissistic  society where everyone is posting selfies on social media. My kids don’t have social media. My kids don’t have phones. Sometimes I grumble about the fact that all they want to do is use their tablets for their 35 minutes of allotted time. Truth is, at my house, screen time does something funny to their under developed brains, that if I give them screen time too early in the day, they can’t focus on anything else afterwards, can’t find anything else to do, and truthfully, can’t even be nice to anyone. My kids need to be tasered into contentment too!

But what am I not content about? The stupidest stuff usually. If only my kids would listen to me. If only my house was clean. If only my husband didn’t work all the time. If only I could have an unlimited amount of money at my disposal. Blah blah blah. Taser me please. I need to train my brain to be thankful for my kids. Thankful for my husband. Thankful for my husband’s job. Thankful for the income we have each week. Thankful for the beachside town we live in. Thankful for wonderful friends who will drop anything to pray for my family(you know who you are). Thankful for extended family. Thankful for technology. Thankful to God for giving me all of these things to be thankful for. What I want even more is to be thankful for the simple things that I often take for granted because I am fortunate to have never been without things that people in other countries consider luxuries. Thankful for indoor plumbing, hot water coming out of my faucets, walls surrounding me, a roof over my head, the trees… The list could go on and on. And it should, because every second that I am breathing and on this earth, God has given me something to be thankful for.

 

 

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