I Keep Arguing With Life

A contented mind may begin when I stop insisting things should be different.

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I spend a surprising amount of time arguing with things that have already happened.

I am 82.

I live alone.

Some people I love are gone.

I do not look the way I did forty years ago, and no amount of good lighting is going to settle the matter in my favor.

I can complain about any of these things, but none of them has yet agreed to change.

A contented mind, I am beginning to think, is not a mind that gets everything it wants. It is a mind that quits demanding a different past, a different body, a different set of losses, and a different Tuesday.

I am not talking about passivity.

Some things should be fought. Injustice should be opposed. Pain should be treated. Loneliness should prompt us to seek human company. A leaking roof does not need acceptance. It needs a roofer.

But a great deal of my unhappiness comes from fighting facts.

I can look in the mirror and think, If only I were younger.

I can sit alone and think, If only somebody were here.

I can look backward and think, If only I had done that differently.

The phrase if only has never improved one minute of my life. Still, it keeps showing up for work.

The mind can wear itself out trying to renegotiate reality.

I know a little about craving. For decades, I worked with people trying to stop drinking and taking drugs. A craving often says, “Something is wrong with this moment. Fix it now.”

Discontent says something similar.

I need more money. More attention. More energy. More people calling me. A younger face would not hurt.

Then I will settle down.

Then I will be content.

Of course, “then” is a country nobody reaches.

One desire gets satisfied, and another one comes through the door before the first has taken off its coat.

I do not believe contentment means killing desire. I still want things. I want to write something somebody reads. I want people to enjoy hearing from me. I would like to feel useful. I would like my body to cooperate with more of my plans.

Wanting is human.

Trouble starts when wanting becomes a demand.

Life owes me companionship. Life owes me health. Life owes me recognition. Life owes me more time. Life has not read the contract.

Gratitude helps, though I have to be careful with the word. Gratitude can become another piece of advice people hand to someone who is hurting.

“Count your blessings.”

Fine. Some days I would rather count my complaints.

Still, I have noticed something. A cup of strong coffee does not solve my life, but it is a good cup of coffee. Sunlight coming through the window does not restore the dead, but it is sunlight. A granddaughter sitting in my apartment with coffee and a warm cookie is not a permanent cure for loneliness.

It is also not nothing.

Contentment grows when I stop throwing away the good because it is not enough to repair everything.

Comparison is another thief.

There is always somebody younger, richer, stronger, better-looking, more admired, or surrounded by cheerful relatives in matching shirts.

I can compare my ordinary Tuesday with somebody else’s photograph and lose every time.

At 82, I am also learning to compare myself with the person I used to be.

I have survived some of them. I have forgiven some of them. I have outgrown some of them. A few of them still owe me an apology.

Contentment does not require me to say everything turned out well.

Some losses stay losses.

Some loneliness remains lonely.

A peaceful mind does not have to lie about any of it.

Peace begins with a smaller sentence:

Here is my life.

Not the life I ordered.

Not the life I used to have.

Not the life I see somebody else enjoying.

Mine.

Today I can make coffee. Write a paragraph. Send a message. Say a prayer without trying to use it as a crowbar. Step outside and let the West Texas wind rearrange what little hair I have left.

I can still be useful.

I can still love people.

I can still notice when something good has happened.

For years, recovery taught me to accept what I could not change and work on what I could.

I am not sure why I keep expecting old age to operate under different rules.

A contented mind does not stop wanting.

It stops making peace wait until every want has been satisfied.

Contentment is not something I achieve.

It is what remains when, for a little while, I stop arguing with my life.

[embed]When the Body Remembers What the Mind Wants to Forget The Man Who Was Looking for a Veinmedium.com

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Retired now, with more than four decades of experience as an addiction counselor walking alongside men and women in recovery, I like to write about faith, human dignity, aging, and the fact that every struggle hides a longing for meaning.

I am a member of the Baha’i Faith and believe that unity and compassion are essential to healing. I write about addiction to substances, recovery, and the thistles of the soul. Human rights are God-given rights.

If you’ve worked with addiction or lived through it, I’d be glad to hear what you’ve learned.