From a broader, less personal perspective, I've also been thinking through our culture and the ways that ingratitude is cultivated all around us each and every day. Simple politeness and manners aren't taught or demanded as they have been in the past, communication is scattered, and verbal and non-verbal ingratitude nearly reigns in the American mindset.
We have an entitlement complex like no other: we deserve extra, free, better, more! Always. It never stops, we are never satisfied... and we are unthankful for what we have because it's not enough. But what is enough? Is there not joy in the everyday, in the simplicities of life, in the common ? We're so busy looking for the extraordinary and the unique in our ideal realities that we miss the extraordinary miracles of our actual realities.
This is highly reflected by our culture's revolution around our ideal [false] realities that we create on Pinterest, Tumblr, facebook, Instagram, and even our blogs, literature, and other media. Isn't it harder to embrace real life when I have such "better" things online? We find ourselves in constant states of discontent, covetousness, and depression. Yet, God has given us every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), has not withheld anything good from us (Psalm 84:11), and is working all things in our lives together for good according to His purpose of making us more like Christ (Romans 8:28-29). The goal, as I've said before, is not happiness, but holiness.
For me, it's time for a reality check. If I'm not living fully in each moment, is my life really full? Our lives are more like leaky buckets, always running out, unable to satisfy and quench, than the overflowing fountains of blessings that God is really giving us. These holes aren't from our circumstances, but from our attitudes.
Marli Tague, a friend of mine, shared this quote over at Cause for Joy:
“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.
And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.
I love movies about ‘The Big Moment’ – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.John Lennon once said, ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’ For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience.”
-Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday LifeI don't know about you, but what Shauna said really hit where it hurts for me. If you asked me about my contentedness, I'd probably tell you I'm a pretty content person. I don't ask for much, I'm pretty flexible, and I can't think of anything I need. But after reading Shauna's thoughts, we realize that contentedness isn't just about stuff. It's about who we are, our circumstances as a whole, and really, about gratitude. If I'm consciously thankful for every circumstance God brings into my life, for every aspect of who I am (physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually), and for everything I have and every need I have, then it's a whole lot harder to go back and complain about it (whether verbally or not). Because that would be a double standard. If I'm inwardly and outwardly as thankful as I ought to be (for who deserves all that God gives?), how would it change my life?
For me, this requires discipline. Discipline to eliminate distractions and experience people, events, and conversations with ears, eyes, mind, and tongue only for the moment. Doing one thing at a time. Not focusing on who I'm not with (smart phone problems, anyone?) at the sake of losing focus from who I am with.
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