Contentment in an age of discontent

Only a month ago the sun was out, the evenings were long and nature was in full bloom. Summer brought easy, relaxed living and a busy social schedule. Life can feel carefree and happy, and a little lazy, in the summer. But now autumn is here, the leaves are turning, the days are getting colder, and the smell of change is in the air. It's probably because I equate it with going back to school or uni, but there's something about autumn that makes me think that it's a fresh start. A shake-up, a drive to pursue my ambitions. A second New Year, if you will.

But with this desire for change comes a feeling of restlessness with how my life currently looks. It's not that I don't feel happy but sometimes - actually, rather often - I don't feel content. I took to the most valid, unbiased and trustworthy source in the world, the internet, to discover the difference between happiness and contentment. The internet tells me that happiness is transient, a fleeting high that can change with circumstances whereas contentment is a state of being. It's a mindset, an attitude that comes from knowing what you have, and being grateful and satisfied with that. It's one that I often struggle to have, especially when I look at all my dreams left unfulfilled and all the things I strive for only to get knocked back again.

'I'll be content once I move to London,' I thought once upon a time, when I was living in Gloucester and dissatisfied with my life. 'London is where I long to be. Yes, once I'm in London life will be fantastic and that's it - I will have reached peak contentment.'

Ha.

Naive, right? I thought this city was all I'd ever want and need and that I'd never want to be anywhere else. I love my life in London, truly I do, but it's real life and while often it is exciting and wonderful, it can be boring and frustrating. And occasionally I feel that old restlessness, that familiar yearning to shake my life up and do something different. Sometimes it's to quit life for 6 months and go and explore the world and sometimes it's as simple as cutting my hair. I just feel the need to do...something. I feel the need for my life to be different to how it currently is. And that, I believe, can sometimes be dangerous.

In this world we are fed on a contestant diet of 'more'. Earn more, achieve more, experience more, want more. Buy that new iPhone, go on that holiday, get in that relationship, just have a bit more stuff. Then you'll be happy. So you buy and buy and buy, and get and do and achieve, and yet somehow there is always something else. You're happy with that phone, until the new model comes out, and you really like that dress until it's out of fashion. That adventure was great but now you need the next one, and your relationship has lost its rose-coloured glow and you're bored. And so the cycle of 'more' continues and we are never satisfied.

So what does a life of being content really look like? And how do I make it happen? I don't have the answers yet, but I do have a few thoughts. Fasten your seat belts kids, it's going to be a bumpy and slightly confusing ride.

Contentment and ambition

As I ponder this question of how to live a life of contentment, I consider how my goals and dreams coincide with that. I am overflowing with dreams. Some I talk about openly and some to only a select few. Some lie dormant, bound by time or circumstances, and some have been pushed down by life's journey. A few are held in secret, a fragile little flame between only me and God. I occasionally wonder if having so many dreams means that I live my life in the future and lose sight of the present. That I might miss the beauty in the right now because I'm constantly thinking of what might be. And then when one dream is realised, I'll be thinking about the next thing instead of just enjoying what I've got.

Can you pursue and long for things, and still be content? The more I think about it, the more I think yes. It's good to have ambitions and goals. We are made to create, to love, to play, to bring our own unique flavour to the world. We should pursue them but at the same time, be mindful of what we currently have. Contentment isn't about not wanting things, it's about enjoying what you do have in the meantime.

Contentment and settling

Unfortunately, things don't just fall from the sky into your lap, you have to actively work for them. I want to keep up momentum, not get stuck in a comfort zone where I'm 'being content' but really I'm stuck in a rut or, worse, too afraid to go for what I want. It's easy to do, I think. It's easy to say that you're content with your life when really you have just settled. Knowing the difference between settling and being content can be tricky. I think it comes to down to whether you feel your life has meaning and hope even in the occasional monotony, or if life is just passing you by. Have you let your dreams die? Have you stopped even hoping because it doesn't look like it's ever going to happen? Then you've settled.

Be satisfied with your life but if there's something you really want - keep going for it. Don't let fear stop you. Don't ever settle for a mediocre, hum-drum life that's just ok when you could have a great one. You are worth so much more than that. You are good enough for the dreams that you hold most dear.

Contentment and faith

I was challenged by a preach I heard at the very start of the year. I can't remember the exact quote but to (very loosely) paraphrase, it was something along the lines of 'what if everything you were hoping for this year didn't happen. Would you still be content? Could you still praise God anyway?' That has been hugely challenging for me and something that I have thought about frequently throughout 2018 because for a lot of the year I'm not sure in all honesty I could say yes. It's still something I'm working on even now. So much of my contentment is in not necessarily in the things I have or lack materially but in the things that lie beyond my control. And it's sometimes hard to trust that God has these things in hand. I know He does, deep down, but when things aren't happening and your expectations are unmet and dreams unrealised it can be so difficult to stay content while keeping faith.

The Bible mentions the word 'content' a number of times. The most famous of which comes from Philippians 4:11 (ESV) - 'I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.' So it seems that contentment is a learned behaviour, rather than something that should come naturally. If contentment can be learned, then surely it's a process that can be mastered. Yet I think, for me, it won't just come by simply trying, but also by praying, worshiping and remembering what I've been given. Contentment comes when I sit back, take stock of my life and choose to see all the things I do have rather than all the things I don't.

This road to contentment is a journey I'm still on. It will probably be one I'm on for a while. Sometimes I may be able to say with utter confidence, 'yes, I'm content' and other times I may have a bit of a wobble. I may not have fully learned to be content, but I'm in the process. And that's something, I guess.

Let's talk about T-Rex, baby

Dinosaurs! Yes, the American Museum of Natural History has many other delights but let's face it, most visitors are there for one thing only - the huge dinosaurs. And huge they are. A cast of the 122 feet Titanosaur (honestly, it sounds like they are getting children to make up these names now), the biggest dinosaur ever found, is so large that its head and neck don't fit in its hall. It could have flattened me with a stamp of one foot, or sent me flying 50 metres with a flick of its tail. You know, if it was alive. Actually, I think even the re-animated skeleton would probably kill me.

Let's go back to the beginning. The American Museum of Natural History, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is one of the largest in the world. It is arranged into 'halls' - the hall of African mammals, the hall of fossils, the hall of human origins etc. It even has a space centre which features a planetarium.

Repeating the pattern from our visit to the Met, my friend and I split up to tackle the museum and I headed straight to the third floor to see the dinosaurs. I wasn't one of those dinosaur kids. I watched Jurassic Park and The Land Before Time and all that but I never really cared to find out the proper names or learn the history. Even now I describe dinosaurs like, "the one with the long neck," or "the one with the spikes on its back," or "the one with the tiny hands". I'd like to say I learned a lot more about dinosaurs in this museum trip and I am now full of interesting dinosaur facts. I did learn a lot but it unfortunately all left my head as soon as I stepped out of the museum doors. What can I say, I'm just not meant to be a dino girl.

The David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing consists of two huge halls and a whole lot of, you guessed it, dinosaur fossils. According to their website, 85% of the models you see are the real fossils, rather than casts and the halls are separated into Saurischian and Ornithischian specimans. I'm going to pretend I remember the difference between them or, indeed, what they even are. But even for clueless me, the halls are fantastic. The fossils and casts are large, numerous and impressive and though the halls were crowded, I didn't feel squashed or rushed. There was plenty to look at and while the exhibits were informative, they were not overwhelming.

After the dinosaurs it was time for a show. Our ticket allowed us into either the Hayden Planetarium show or a 3D Amazon movie and we chose the planetarium because space is cool. We were led into a circular room with reclined seats and settled ourselves down as Neil deGrasse Tyson explained the mysteries of dark matter. It was a good show, very interesting and visually pretty but I did find myself closing my eyes and beginning to drift off to Neil's dulcet tones. What can I say, it had been a very busy few days and I had a cold.

We split up again and I tried to power-walk my way through as much as the museum as I could before it closed. I spent a good amount of time in the halls of mammals, which were quite cool but it turns out there are so many stuffed animals you can see before you get bored of them. There was a very interesting exhibit about Native American culture and origins, which led onto South Pacific peoples and eventually an Easter Island head which I (shamefully) remembered was also in the Night at the Museum movie.

Because time was running out, I didn't get to see the Hall of Human Origins or many of the other space things which is a bit of a shame. Like almost everything in NYC, the museum is massive and there is so much to see - too much for one afternoon. Did I like the museum? Very much. Was it my favourite museum in New York? No, that currently still belongs to the Met. Do I prefer it to the London Natural History Museum? Well, given that I haven't been to the London one in years, it is yet to be decided. But the NYC one might inch ahead if I'm honest. If only because of the dinosaurs.