The Road to Contentment: Learning to Like Yourself

A friend of mine once told me, in the dimly-lit setting of a smokey beer bar, that some people just never seem to find what they're looking for in life. They go through their whole lives angry, frustrated, and depressed. In their deeper selves, they are searching for that one thing that will make their lives complete. Some find it. Some never do.

As I stopped to think about how to respond, I realized he was right. All of my life has been a search for some greater purpose, or some small thing that would make me content. At 37-years-old, it seemed as if I had already lived five lifetimes of mistakes getting where I was at that moment. Now, I was sitting on a barstool with less than $25.00 to my name, and blowing it on a cold Corona -- because that is what I wanted at that moment.

I had already come to the conclusion, long ago, that life is what you make it. I never changed my thinking about that. The problem was figuring out how to make it what you want it to be.

As a teenager, when I would scream to my mother that "It isn't fair!", she would scream back how "Life isn't fair!" I remember thinking along the lines that life is what you make it. I remember wondering how anyone could go through life making it hard on everyone else just because they are bitter about their own situation. I wondered if I could inevitably make a difference.

Now, in mid-life, I am not so naive. I realize that I, alone, can't make a difference to anyone but myself. As I've come to grow with-in myself, to understand myself, and become who I am, I've realized that as long as I can like who I am and what I stand for, and believe in the greater cause and work toward that end, looking in the mirror at myself at the end of the day becomes a whole lot easier. Being able to live with myself the way I am is the first step to being content.

Being content, after all, is what we are all looking for. Whether money, or doing something meaningful, or ministering to others, or having a great career is what makes you content, it all starts somewhere. Learning to like yourself is the first step toward being content.