Seeking After Contentment

It is a new thought to me to think that yesterday I started the rest of my life.

I think I've spent just about all of my life looking forward to events that lie in futurity, thinking of those times yet to come as the time when real life begins. From high school to college to my mission back to college to law school, I've spent most of my time looking ahead. I recognize that to some degree some forward thinking can be error, and I make no representations that I wasn't in error in doing so, but there isn't much place for that kind of thinking anymore. I realized today at work that I've started the phase of my life where I should stop looking ahead, and try harder to look at the things I'm doing as ends in and of themselves, rather than simply means to an end. To put it more plainly, it seems more important than ever now to be content with what the day demands, rather than seeking relief in some activity or event in the future (like the weekend, summer or christmas break, graduation, etc.).

I have a friend whose father once said, "I think we do ourselves a disservice when we do not count contentment among our sought after goals." I've always liked that idea. Contentment isn't necessarily something that happens to us, but something we should seek after and obtain. Any notions otherwise seem to leave us at the whims of circumstance, which depending on ones perspective may never lend themselves to such feelings. In my mind though, at least theoretically, contentment seems to be there for the asking--regardless of circumstance. At least it should be. Anyway, as I begin my professional career that's what I'm striving for--to foster contentment in my daily activities: even amid the otherwise mundane aspects of lawyering.

Now if I could just lose 20 more pounds, then I'd be really be happy.