On Accepting Dissatisfaction in Order to be Happy

By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD

I don’t enjoy my life, much. I actually think this is true of a lot of people. If you ask straight out, “Do you enjoy your life?” Most people will say yes; of course they do! It would be embarrassing to say otherwise, because we’ve all been told life would go a certain way and involve certain things, and if it doesn’t, it must be our fault and therefore we shouldn’t ever tell anyone about it, ever. And we’ve all been conditioned not to think about these things. As an abstraction, yes, life is more preferable than the alternative. Duh.

“Did you enjoy the movie?”

“It was better than being dead.”

But if I break it down and quantify exactly what my “life” entails, I start to encounter problems with the whole “enjoying it” thing. What is a life? It’s how you spend your time, right? So how do I spend my time? A lot of my time is spent at work. Again, ask me if I enjoy my work, and I’ll say, “Sure. It’s fine.” But let’s get specific. What about my boss? My coworkers? That one guy who always causes problems? If I zero in on specifics, the answer becomes no. I don’t enjoy my job. I work too much for too little gain. I have too much responsibility that I’m not compensated for. I will work my whole life to maybe be able to retire, when I’ll try to enjoy things…