Discontentment Definition:
Unhappiness caused by the failure of one’s hopes, desires, or expectations
So the root of my pain this year is mostly due to discontentment. I woke at the beginning of this year angry that my life did not turn out the way I thought it would, and I hope it will. It looks like I tried really hard to build my life, and I failed.
I got discouraged and wanted to give up.
One of the things that can spur discontentment is the sense of entitlement
It happens to a lot of us, and in a sense, we can understand.
We all have dreams, desires and aspirations, and in a sense, we all fight to get what we want.
But what do we do when we fail and when the dream is not fulfilled?
How do we react when the answer is no or wait (an answer I am way too familiar with)?
But sometimes, because we feel we deserve certain things, we decide we need to have them now. Especially in our modern microwave society, we want everything we want now. We tried our best to get rid of the concept of patience in our everyday lives. Our smartphones allow us to facilitate so many aspects of our lives. Google gives answers to most of our questions. You order something, you can get it the day after. You want to book a ticket to see the world, you can do it. It’s all about having your way and having it fast.
We are also increasingly prone to comparing ourselves to others because of social media and the internet. We are so much into other people’s lives that it’s easy to look at ourselves and feel like we are missing out. It is so easy to feel: ‘why am i not getting the same as the rest? Why am I not there yet?’
So we get frustrated, and the danger of discontent is that it can quickly turn into bitterness.
So how can we deal with and fight discontentment?
Changing our perspectives
The reason the concept of positivity is so popular is that when we get hit in life, our first reaction is to feel down, which is normal. But the thing is, we let our emotions get the best of us, and our judgment gets clouded.
If I have a bad day, I can feel like I have a bad life,
or I have a bad year, so the next year will get worse.
I did not succeed this time, so I will never succeed.
I lost this game, so I will lose the season.
This person hurt me, so everybody else will hurt me
Re-focus
One of the favourite things I heard in a preaching came from Christine Caine, an Australian evangelist speaker. She said: ‘Do not let anything that has happened to you be bigger than what Jesus has done for you.’
You have meaning, and your life has meaning, despite the tragedies. We have to learn how to be grateful to change our perspective.
We have to look at the goodness in our lives.
Learning how to be grateful is an exercise. You have to remind yourself constantly of your blessings. Truly, there are things in your life right now that you did not have before, but you prayed and hoped for them, and now you have them. But because you have the wrong perspective, you can take them for granted. Whether it is your health, your friends, your family, your job, your house, your talents, etc., someone, somewhere is even praying for what you have.
From time to time, sit down, think or even write the things in your life that you are grateful for, whether small or big. Remembers the answered prayers you had in the past.
Additionally, we have to put to death comparison. I know this one is also hard.
But you know what they say: the grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere.
As a matter of fact, we all go through things, but we are just very smart at putting filters on our emotions and lives, just the same way we do with our Instagram photos. And as much as we are conditioned to think that life is a competition, it is not. Let’s not be jealous or envious of others just because they are doing something different from us. We tend to compare our chapter 20 with someone’s chapter 50. We look at our lives and compare them with someone’s highlight reel on Facebook. These cannot really be compared. Let’s learn to rejoice with those who rejoice and help each other in our different races.
Leave others’ grass alone and water your own grass.
So in conclusion,
Mourn the life you wanted and embrace the life you have.
Embrace the mess and the good things.
It is your story.
You grew through the storms.
You learn through the painful moments.
Adversity built your character.
We will never have perfect lives, but we all have things to be grateful for.
Let’s never strive for perfection; it is not realistic. Let’s always look for progress.
You are not who you were a year, five years, or ten years ago.
I had a plan, but God had another, and his prevailed.
His plan is good, and better than mine.
I probably will not see it through the hard times, but after the storms, I always see a bit clearer and a bit better.
I can look back and realise the beauty in my life.
Rom 8:28