Your friend, the health guru, he exposes your lack of discipline and your eating habits, not because he is mean-spirited; but because he is a stark contrast to your own habits.  There is Money-Management Girl, the couple who should win Parents-of-the-Year, and their children – Well-Behaved-Genius-Babies.  Don’t forget Auto Maintenance Guy, who has never had a dash light stay on for more than three days.  You love all those people; they’re friends.  But they exude an uncomfortable light.

I actually don’t like Auto Maintenance Guy anymore.

An old song begins, “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make an ugly woman your wife.”  I rejected that advice and married a beautiful woman anyhow.   Either my experience proves the song to be right or we all live in similar conditions with regard to happiness: it is a moving target at best, or even more likely, it is an emotional vapor.

Before you go accusing me of being an old curmudgeon, let me assure you that I believe in happiness; just not as a goal for real life. 

Pitfalls of Vision and Nostalgia

Everybody has goals.  They vary in size and scope, but we all have them.  Goals are inescapable.  From the illustrious quest for middle management or some authoritative leadership to small business success to out-drinking your buddy on a Friday night: a goal is a goal.  To achieve a goal requires vision;

I have a friend who wakes up most mornings angry and disappointed.  Because life is not in order.  Because she is not who she expected she would be, at least not at this stage of her life.  Because yesterday her to-do-list was twelve items long and three of those items are still unchecked.  Because her efforts toward achieving her desires, simple desires, are all undone.  Not every morning, some days she wakes up in serenity.  You’d think that these days would be celebrated, and sometimes they are, but often they serve as reminders of the other days, the undone days.  Did I mention that she is a “list person?” 

I once suggested to a group of Christian leaders that we should embrace contentment as a value.  You’d have thought that I proposed streaming Saw II behind their Sunday morning worship lyrics.  The reigning idea within Christendom is simple: “Contentment breeds complacency.”  If people feel quieted and peaceful, there’s a good chance they won’t change.  Maybe there is more than one accepted definition of content.  Maybe that’s the problem…

Contentment is such a huge biblical idea, you find it everywhere throughout scripture.  It starts showing up early