Sometimes my purse gets incredibly heavy while I’m lugging it around day in and day out. When I finally decide to figure out what is making it so weighed down, usually it’s a random toy or some other heavy object that I don’t need to be carrying around, but have forgotten is in there. One time it was giant rock that my son had slipped in there for me to carry for him! After the troubling object was removed, I felt so much lighter and my shoulder quit hurting!
Contentment
I recently watched a TED talk in which Shawn Achor discussed happiness and success. He pointed out that if we measure happiness by successes in our life and external determiners, we have to keep upping the ante. Thus, we are never really happy. If we reach the goal that determines success, we have to push the standard higher or come up with a new goal. We start over and are always lacking. If, however, we turn it around and learn to be content in our circumstances, we can be happy before we become “successful” in whatever terms we use for that.