When you’re a kid, all you want, is to be an adult. And when you become an adult and responsible for your own life, bills etc. You realise very quickly, that it’s not everything you thought it would be.
Enter the Rat Race
All of a sudden, you find yourself in a rat race, working your butt off just to pay the bills at the end of each month. It’s easy to go months on end, without slowing down, even just for a few minutes and contemplate what’s going on around you.
Every once in a while, I find myself standing next to the “braai”, staring into the flames, drinking a beer and having deep (or not so deep) conversation with loved ones. The I have an epiphany. I am content.
“Pleased with your situation and not hoping for change or improvement” - Cambridge Dictionary Definition of Content
It’s in those moments that I realise how privileged I am. Having a roof over your head, enough to eat, money in your pocket and loved ones in your heart - is a PRIVILEGE.
Why is it that we forget this so easily? To be honest, I am not sure why it’s only in these small moments that we realise our privilege. All I know, I want to be more aware of it, and the only way I see to do this, is to maximise these moments of contentment, where I feel that:
- This is enough
- I don’t want to be anywhere else
- I don’t want to be with anyone else
- I am content
- I am privileged
Slowing down, leads to perspective
I have also realised, that if we realise how priviliged we are and put all our “problems” into perspective, then all of a sudden they become small and not that urgent or hectic at all.
My challenge to you. Slow down.
If you don’t even know where to start, here are some things that make me content:
- Walks on the beach
- Listening to great music
- Drinking great whisky
- Standing next to a braai/fire
- The Namib Desert (camping, hunting, sitting next to a fire)
- Watching people enjoy a meal I have made or paid for
- Long baths
- Meaningful conversation
- Reading a book