Complacent, Content, Committed

"And if your words add up to nothing then you're making a choice
To sing a cover when you need a battle cry
Be afraid, be very afraid
But do it anyway
Do it anyway"
 - Be Afraid, by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit 


I have this thing where I'm often telling myself to try and identify the line between contentment and complacency. I am a mix of restlessness and calm, actively going and doing yet being generally content with simple things. But, with that contentment I often feel the urge to make sure I'm not settling in any way. Time has long been a focal point for me; how it can seem like there's so much of it and so little both at once.

As a young girl, I had a moment of realizing, with what felt like divine clarity, that I wasn't alive by accident; surely by design I was born, living in this world, taking up space and air and growing in knowledge and wonderment each day. I was maybe seven years old, sitting in the back seat of my parent's car, looking out the window and daydreaming, when I began to think over the story I'd heard about the car accident my mother was in while pregnant with me, and about being born premature and jaundiced. Bad things could have happened as a result of those events, yet instead, there I was, whole and well. I didn't have to be alive right then, yet because of reasons beyond myself, I was. I felt overwhelmed, both honored and weighted by this offering of love and expectation of purpose. I wanted to put it into words, yet even now, words fall short.

It's a feeling which, heavy and light, has followed me all of my life. It's the reason I did mission work overseas, and continue to seek out work which has an element of helping people. It's not saintly or pedestal worthy or some other such bullshit, but is simply the way I'm wired. Yet the flip side of the helping is to wonder if I'm doing enough to follow my own dreams. I see the hustle some people put into their dreams and think, am I content, or complacent? Should I be pressing harder for myself, or is it good that I'm generally happy as a helper and in my own small pursuits?

Then again, when I really stop to think about it, no pursuits are really ever small. We like to compare and contrast, conflating the meanings in our minds to be of differing values, yet in the end, it's all worthy. Every dream has substance, whether it's to be a Nobel prize-winner or get sober, to be a parent or play an instrument just for yourself.

Back to the so-not-saintly thing and the born-whole-despite-the-accidents thing: I want to help others because of a deep-seated sense of gratitude. I find it can be easy to take for granted the everyday things which I'm truly so grateful to have. Health, a loving family, close friends, and a good job (not to mention material things like a home I love, a car, and more). Things like chronic illness, severe poverty, addiction, abuse, and abandonment are traumas I've seen first hand in others, while never having experienced myself. There are moments when I want to bellow with grief over the unfairness of the world, including the shock I feel for wondering why I have been given all I have. So, my logic then is that if I have, I should give. Because I'm healthy, I can donate blood and hard work. I can be someone whom people can lean on, because of faith and the support of others which I remind my heart to not take for granted. I cannot fix people (and oh how I want to be the fixer, spiriting away the pain, so the reminder that I can't always do that, not even to single-handedly fix myself, is a constant internal struggle), though maybe I can do some small good. For if we have, then may we give. I've shared previously one of my favorite quotes, by John Adams: "Commitment. There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others."

We are, each of us, one of the two: those with the commitment, or those who require the commitment of others. Often we are both, at varying degrees and times, throughout our lives.


So, may I remember to not make light of my contentment, but instead to use it as thankful fuel for all I have and am able to do. To embrace seemingly ordinary, everyday joys, and inch forward towards other dreams. If I feel complacent, I hope to examine it and possibly mend it without losing the peace of contentment. I hope to remember that I cannot fix others or myself on my own; such repairing of damages done in this battered yet beautiful world is for a far bigger Being than myself. May we each find contentment and commitment; in ourselves, and in others. Even when we're afraid ... may we do it anyway.