Guest Blog // Satisfaction Doesn't Kill Desire

Written by Monique N. Forward /// Find in For Self

Wait  Till I Get My...

Living in America is both a blessing and a curse.  Americans are taught that we can have anything we want if we just put our nose to the grindstone and work hard, all our dreams will come true.  And while that thought is true in its purest form, the pursuit of happiness is not that simple. The pursuit of happiness can often bring more stress than happiness.  It gives us justification to any dissatisfaction we have with our lives when the pursuit is not moving at the posted speed to our next stop.   Many of us seem to be in a constant state of unhappiness.  Our internal dialogue is focused on what we don’t have and what we need to get in order to be happy.

Many of us aren’t happy with our lives because despite our great career we feel we need a family, or at least a husband.  Or if we have a great family we dismiss the happiness they bring because we sacrificed our career.  Even those of us with great careers and family lives find reasons to not be happy, maybe our husband doesn’t call us honey or our kids are more interested in video games than Beethoven. There just always seems to be something preventing us from being completely fulfilled and we convince ourselves the only way to that happiness is to reach the next level.  We are always looking for something to improve and work to, even when we have reached our life goals.  We are constantly saying “wait til…” I’m not saying we should stop setting goals once we reach ours.

We need goals.  Goals help propel us forward. Goals help us to grow and live productive and happy lives.  No one wants to get complacent and miss out on the next best thing.  So we all push forward on to the next one, with out ever stopping to be thankful for where we are or to even look back at where we came from.  Often, as women, we can get so preoccupied with what we need to do next that we don’t stop and smell the flowers.  We don’t marinate in the now.  We are quick to tell you we are only five pounds, five dollars, five dates away from the next thing; we very rarely appreciate where we are in our lives right now. Why do we seem to never be satisfied with what we have?

I think a good deal of it comes from our fear of complacency.  When you are a person who sets goals you always fear that if you stop you may not start again.  We fear that we will become stagnant or we will get comfortable and decide to stop pushing forward.   We fear that we will become too familiar with our current station and decide who needs to be the next great thing? Who needs to get all the way down to a size X?  Who needs to be married to have a full life?  We fear we will become those people who are just happy to struggle or take crumbs from the table of life.  We are afraid if we take a minute to enjoy the fruits of our labor will we lose sight of the prize; that if we take time to enjoy our journey we will become complacent and not remember how much farther we need to go.

Driving to success is a slippery slope that requires a firm grip and, most of all, balance.  One must learn how to enjoy what they have, keep working towards the next thing and not lose their grip on the things they currently have.  One must learn that their happiness should not be tied to things, people or accomplishments. We create our on happiness and it should and can exist no matter where we are in our journey to greatness.  Being happy is the best fuel for success.

Healthy goal tracking should include a healthy dose of appreciating how far you’ve come; otherwise it becomes a psychosis of dissatisfaction.  No one said keeping your eye on the prize, meant you couldn’t enjoy what you have now.   And no one said they want to hear you complain about how horrible your life is, when they can see the many things in life you have to be happy about.  In a world where we a reminded of the fragility of life daily, simply being here is reason enough to be happy.

Our goals should guide us through life; without consuming who we are, after all we can only be present in one moment at a time.  The present moment is the only thing we can control.  We cannot change our past and we cannot dictate our future, but we can choose who and what we are in our present. We can choose to be happy and satisfied in our current situations as we strive to get to the next level, instead of saving our happiness for the next big thing.

Check out Monique's blog The Glamazon Chronicles.