I have, for as long as I can remember, had trouble with ever being content with what I had. Or where I was. Or what I was doing. There was always something more, something better just out of reach, and I always had to be struggling to get there. Maybe it’s a sign of growing up, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my circumstances, my goals, dreams, ambitions, and I have a very different sense of it all now.

For years now, I’ve wanted to go to graduate school, get a PhD! Be a professor! But, currently, I’m working in a mediocre retail-type job. Old me would be going berserk. Being angry about wasting time, resources. That the job was below me, that I could do SO MUCH MORE! But, new me is content to just live with it. Don’t get me wrong, contentment does not equal complacency. I still have my dreams, my goals. But right now? Mediocre or not, I’m working. That’s a whole lot better than can be said for many people right now. And I’m not too far removed from being in that worse category myself, either.

So, grad school is deferred for a while. I don’t even know for how long (which would have driven me nuts too), but I’m okay with it. My wife and I are making a nice life for ourselves. We’ve purchased a house, we’re paying down what’s left of other debt (her car, really), and we’re setting ourselves up for an extremely bright future. One in which I will be able to chase my dreams of graduate school and a doctorate. Or maybe open a restaurant together. Or maybe a bookstore. Who knows? I’ve come to realize there are so many different things I can see myself doing in the future that I would just absolutely love. And for the first time in my life, I’m also realizing that they’re possible. Just not right now.

And also for the first time in my life, I’ve come to realize that “not right now” is okay. It’s funny how gradually the thought grows on you, until one day when you give yourself enough time to really think about it, you’re taken aback at just how drastically different it feels. Less stress, less anxiety. The ability to finally be “okay” with myself, even if I need to loose some weight, or if I’m not sitting around smugly intellecting with other academics. It’s just okay to keep your nose to the wheel and weather the tough times, because in the end? It’s just another path, with different experiences, different pieces of found wisdom.

It’s this contentment that will let me work to attain the weight goal, or the academic goals. I think this is true in part because a goal will always seem unattainable if your present position seems so bad that the starting line is difficult to find. It also leads to greater reward when the goal is finally attained, in that the goal is an end unto itself, not just a means to some other higher goal. The endless goal cycle I always found myself in held no reward, only questions of why the achievement wasn’t something better. It may not make any logical sense, but that’s how I viewed almost every personal achievement.

This may all be old-hat for you all, but for me it’s my first experience venturing from the proverbial cave. Again, I want to make it clear that contentment does not mean I’m okay with not working for or toward something better, it just means I can be happy with where I am in the interim. Even if it’s not exactly where I hope or had hoped to be.