iPods and Contentment

This is from my diary, last summer. Recently, after returning home from an amazing faith experience, I discovered I had many of the same problems in my life. Re-reading this helped me through those problems.

About six and a half years ago, my parents splurged big-time and got my brother and I the best Christmas presents ever: iPod nanos. Back then, they were basically like iPod classics, but they were only 8GB and fit in the palm of your hand. Mine was silver. I hardly used it until I made it to college, where I walked everywhere. It was so much easier to walk to work with only a small, lighter-sized box in my pocket than a CD player and CD holder the size of my head. It held enough music that I could be thoroughly entertained for the 40 minutes it took me to walk anywhere I needed in town. I put my CDs in storage and left my CD players under my bed, convinced I may never need them again.

So, years passed.

I collected more iTunes music than my 8GB could hold.

I named the iPod Titanic and sunk it often. Just for the irony.

Titanic accompanied me on many hours of long spiritual walks where I screamed at God, contemplated my existence and all manner of various relationships.

Titanic survived over half a dozen of my purses.

Titanic went with me to China, holding not only my music but pictures of friends and family as well.

Then I graduated.

Titanic died and left me without my music.

For a solid week, I could not find anyway to cope with life. I couldn't walk. I had no access to the music that made my walks the inner reflective mini-journeys that they were. I just sat around and did nothing. I was pretty devastated.

I've graduated. I've lost the one occupation I've known all my life - student. All of a sudden, I'm expected to find a job I can live off of and pay bills. The jobs expect me to have years of experience or advanced, highly specified degrees. My work barely pays me enough to keep coming, let alone profit and live off of it. And my iPod, which had all of my coping mechanisms stored in programs, is gone. Lost for (virtually) ever.

People have told me to be patient; good things are coming to me soon. I started my job search in January. I have put out over 200 applications. I have had 3 interviews.

People have told me to be patient; it'll take hard work. I've filled out as many as 60 applications a week. Please, if you're going to tell me that's not hard work, do the world a favor and unfriend me. Right now.

People have told me that God has something special in the works and He's cooking it up right now. I just need to be patient. Well, my funds are almost out and I have little to nothing left to live on - most certainly not enough to make my job worthwhile. Quitting would almost make me a profit by now. Patience isn't much of an option at this point.

The common theme here is patience - which, as I pointed out, is not an option.

I'm still in the process of learning this, but I'm thinking the key is contentment.

Earlier this week, I read and shared an article on how my generation is the most entitled generation of all time. At first, I was offended until I read the article's definition of entitled: We want everything now, and we're not willing to wait or work hard to get it. And holy cow, they are so right.

Think about how we're raised. We live off of microwave dinners - taking cooking time down from half an hour or more to a couple of minutes. We have Google, which instantly looks any information we require up at the click of a finger. We have Google on our phones so we never have to be anywhere without instant access to information. Illinois just bumped up the speed limit from 65 (the fastest a semi can safely travel) to 70 so we can get places more quickly. We complain if our video takes more than a minute to load. Heck, we all have WALMART - anything you want, just go and buy. They're open 24/7, even on holidays and Sundays. Everything about our lives is almost instantaneous.

It's no wonder we're entitled.

Maybe not everything has been handed to us, but we get everything fairly quickly. Movies - Netflix. Food - McDonald's or a microwave. Music - iTunes or YouTube. Books - Kindle. We hardly wait for anything. How can we be expected to wait when our world has almost bent over backward to cater to our every whim ON A WHIM???

But, you say, What does this have to do with contentment?

Well...

All of this starts with a want. We WANT stuff faster, so companies oblige and charge a higher price for getting it to us faster, or they skimp out on something and give it to us faster for cheaper and less for less. Then that becomes the standard, and they strive to oblige us with more - which then becomes the standard. Now we live in a world where everything should happen instantaneously. Instant oatmeal from a box. Instant boyfriends on a dating website. Instant jobs with a one-click job application. Instant schooling with "we have no standards just breathe and you'll do fine" online schools. Instant pets - just add water to sea monkeys. Instant mashed potatoes.

The other day, my temporary roommate and I needed to eat. I don't mean we were kinda hungry and it was about that time so we ate. I mean, neither of us had eaten much and it was the end of the day and we both really needed to eat. We didn't have the money to go buy what we wanted or something that would be quick and easy. All we had were potatoes and cilantro. We had to cook them somehow.

So we peeled the potatoes. We chopped the potatoes. We boiled them in water. We washed and chopped the cilantro. We threw it in as we mashed the potatoes with a fork. We stirred in a little salt and water.

And had thirds.

Yeah, they were good.

I learned something from that incident.

First of all - I learned to cook potatoes from scratch, and that cilantro brings better flavor to potatoes than does butter, salt, and pepper. Also, I learned what it felt like to eat because I was hungry and not because I wanted something. I ate because I needed to eat. I wanted something other than potatoes, but with what little I had and how hungry I was, the little I had tasted great. I noticed I also paid more attention to the company I was with than taste of the food. Somehow, enjoying laughter, friendship, and "Avatar: The Last Airbender" overshadowed the food, and altogether, it just seemed better.

I didn't have what I wanted, but I had what I needed, and what I had was good anyway.

So, the answer is no, I don't have what I want. I don't have a good job. I don't have a good boyfriend. I don't have a lot of stuff that would make life better. Those things would make me happy, but for how long? How long would it be before they lost their luster, so to speak, and I wanted something else to satisfy me?

The answer, is, of course, contentment.

Being content with what you have doesn't mean you don't aim or look for more. You just recognize that what you have is enough and it's pretty good. Being content opens one's eyes up to things that are a little more precious in life - like, yeah, maybe making money is great, but maybe spending time with family is good, too. Or maybe the focus shouldn't be on what we're eating so much as with whom we're eating.

I lost a good friend when my iPod died. However, I dug my old CD players out from under my bed, and, lo and behold, one of them still worked. The oldest one I had. My first CD player. I don't have the same music. But one day I will burn copies and I'll have some of it. I don't have the ability to run or do krav maga while I listen. But I can walk. I can move. I can learn to cope with it.

I don't have a good job to pay for a new iPod or any of the nice things I want right now. But I have one that keeps me employed until I find something else, which is important on a resume. I don't have a job that pays for itself, but I do have a job that pays me something. I don't have enough money to make it through the week, but I have family to support me and a church with a food pantry. I don't have faith the size of a mustard seed.

So I'll just move a hill, not a mountain.

I have what I need.

And as the old, comforting sound of bagpipes fills my ears, I remember the beautiful little girl I used to be, and I know my mind is filled with better things than it was when I had my iPod. Somehow, being content with what I do have makes the terrible spots in life better. It could be worse, but God has provided my daily bread, and that's enough for me.