But how do we know what to want?!?
While listening to an episode of Fresh Air today I was drawn to this quote from her guest, clinical psychologist and author, Mary Pipher.
Pipher has published a new book about women and aging. Through her research she has found that retirement aged women are one of the happiest demographics.
Some of this is attributed to having more time, but Pipher says that it is heavily dependent on having certain skills, one of those skills being the ability to maintain reasonable expectations.
This is a skill I fear I rarely possess and which creates a lot of frustration and disappointment in life.
What is truly important to me? What should I expect to have? What do I want? And if obtained will it make me happy? These are all questions I’m trying to ask myself more, I’m hoping it will help me to understand what’s worth wanting and ultimately make me a happier and healthier person.
Our culture makes it really hard to understand what is worth having and what is important, we are pushed in every direction and inundated with images and ideas of what makes a happy and successful life. If I can just lose these 15 lbs I’ve been carrying around for a decade, if I can just make my house look perfect, if I can just make my family look flawless to everyone else, if I can just meet the right people....if...if...if....then I will be happy. Managing these expectations is a constant battle, stopping fully and being present in the imperfect-ness of our lives and trying to find contentment is one of the hardest things anyone can accomplish.
My house might be a total disaster (I don’t even have children to blame it on), my dogs might be poorly behaved, I don’t have my dream job (or probably anyone’s) and my marriage is far from perfect.
Despite all these seemingly negative things I am an extremely lucky and privileged person. I am alive, relatively young, in generally good health, I have a job that pays my bills and allows me to save and I have a home that I share with my badly behaved dogs and husband that I love very much.
I’m challenging myself in 2019 to live more in the present, to complain less about what I don’t have and to instead appreciate what I do. To really determine if the things I “want” are really for me or if they are the distorted ideas of what our culture and society tells me I should have. I want to, as Mary Pipher explains, know what I want so I can go get it.