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I was struck by a few lines in the book I am reading, A Parchment of Leaves. "He talked about going out west and being a railroad engineer and getting rich. Always something like that. He thought you all the time had to be doing something big to be living. Never could set down on the front porch and take a deep breath and feel satisfied that his day had been well spent."
I think I often suffer from this same ailment. Never able to sit still and just enjoy the moment. Enjoy doing nothing or doing something as simple as just sitting. Why is it that some people have a more general sense of contentment than others? Is it something a person can develop over time or will I always be restless? Always thinking I have to be doing something big to be living. I know its not true. Life is in the little moments, the little things - a sigh, a sunrise, a raindrop, a smile, a tear. None of those things are big except a sunrise.
Lord help me find some patience, peace and appreciation for the little things that are THE LIVING in my life.
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The latest issue of the CATO institute's CATO Unbound has a series of stories on "Happiness in an age of Abundance." http://www.cato-unbound.org/ Very interesting stuff. There was a short article in the Scientific American recently about something we are all pretty aware of "Hedonic Adaptation" http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=5B76E630-E7F2-99DF-3958811DF98CBC37 We have all heard about folks who win the lottery and then a year later are as unhappy or more so than they were before. The notion that we can achieve a great deal and still be unhappy is probably a wonderful adaptation. If not for that, we would all look for the real-life equivalent of "lotus eating," from Homer's Odyssey.
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