Home Lifestyle Being Satisfied
My first thought today, when I thought of writing, was about how dissatisfied I am with one of the simplest of things: my floor. I often sit on the floor to work and play, so it’s something that’s, well, always there.
Of course, the floor is always there regardless of whether you pay attention to it or not. (You’d… what? Float in space otherwise?) But I found myself thinking of it as a constant, and an irritant at that.
I’m not a fan of any flooring, I find. Stone floors are cold and hard; hardwood floors are warmer, but still hard; carpeted floors are softer, but that depends very much on the type of carpet and the padding underneath. I’m currently sitting on a shag carpet (I think?) — I’ve had a Berber carpet before, but that was less comfortable than this.
But this carpet isn’t especially comfortable either.
I don’t know if what I want is actually a sort of foam – like a Tempurpedic bed, I guess? But that seems ridiculous for a floor. When I think of it, I can’t help but see it as silly, laughable… and that’s exactly what it is. Maintaining such a floor would be a nightmare; walking on it would be exhausting. (Sleeping on it, though… but… that’s not what floors are for.)
The core focus for me, though, isn’t the floor. It’s my dissatisfaction with something that is, in the end, not negotiable; the floor will always be there, and as long as I like to sit on it for whatever reason, it’s going to be slightly uncomfortable.
The floor isn’t the problem. I am the problem. It’s my dissatisfaction with the floor, not the floor itself.
To be sure, my dissatisfaction is pretty mild – I’m not actually sitting here fuming about the floor. (I was sitting on it, and realized that I could write about the floor, and how I felt about it.)
But it got me thinking about other areas of dissatisfaction. I actually choose my level of dissatisfaction, largely based on my focus on things that shouldn’t really matter. Most of the things I’m not entirely happy with are things that I cannot control very well, and thus my dissatisfaction turns into a weight, a yoke.
I chain myself to problems with which there is no negotiation. That seems inefficient. In a lot of ways, it seems wrong.
God’s put me into a Creation that is marvelous beyond my ability to imagine; I see things almost every day that are amazing, even if they’re not understandable. (Why do people support Donald Trump? Or Hillary Clinton? Or Ted Cruz? Or Bernie Sanders? … but they do. And that’s amazing, even if I think it’s silly.)
It seems unfortunate to see even things like that as problems in the world that hurt my ability to appreciate the glory that God reveals on a regular basis. So maybe I can take my slight observation about floors and turn it into a decision to appreciate everything – including my floors – around me.
Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: 500words, creation, floors, satisfaction