Chronic Discontentment

Everyday I drop off my kids at school, and never do they worry about the things that happened to them the day before. You don’t see stress lines, worry, or past trials etched into their faces.
I drop them off, happy today, as they were yesterday, ready to start the day again.

I walk my youngest down the hall each day and on the wall are these posters for some classes the church associated with the school has posted. One of them reads : Feeding Chronic Discontentment. I see it everyday, twice a day. And the thought of “Feeding Chronic Discontentment” has been running thru my mind for some time now.

Chronic Discontentment. Deep thought isn’t it. I repeat to myself over and over, I hear my voice in my head repeating it. I have tried to avoid looking at the sign, but I know its there and it seems to follow me where ever I go now. In the shower, in the bed, in the car, sitting at work, even in my mind as my music plays in my ears. Chronic Discontentment….

I know that’s me. I open up the deep-self we normally hide from people and its there. That self that is chronically discontent. The one you press down and ignore and avoid, until that moment you feed it. Like an animal it will bust thru the gates you have been holding it down with and Chronic Discontentment rages in your head.
Can’t have this, can’t do that, not good at this, not good at that, talk this way, think this way, complain about this, be unhappy about that, lie about this, hide from this, avoid that, start that…..

Feeding Chronic Discontentment can only lead to bad. That negative energy that sucks you down and down until you are not sure who you really are anymore. I feel chronically discontented, I try to hold it back, I feed it a bit here and there, and I think to myself, if it has to be fed to come to the surface, what if you don’t feed it? What if you starve that Chronic Discontentment out?

Good question….how do you do that?

And again, I see my kids faces, no Chronic Discontentment has aged them. No Chronic Discontentment has ever even whispered by their ears. So you need to starve the Chronic Discontentment beast, and feed the Attitude of Gratitude beast…..much harder than it sounds isn’t it?

“Where there is strife, there is confusion, and every kind of evil.” James 3:16