Are You Living the Good Life Yet?

You know, that sweet, contented, peaceful state of being you will reach…someday.

Has anyone else been worrying too much lately about the future? Is anyone else caught on the lonely rat race of believing that the good, better life we long for must be just a little ahead of us, in the future?

Oh, the good life. That sweet, contented, peaceful state of being we will reach once we’ve…retired? Started our dream job? Gotten married? Had a child, published a book, made six figures in six months, found the perfect apartment, solved the source of those dreaded migraines, settled into the perfect group of friendships, and found some extra vacation time?

That good life. Your best life, if you will.

I’ve been dwelling too often lately in that sweet delusion of my best life. My mind loves to assess what I need in order to get there, and there is always somewhere in the future, after I’ve reached some sort of goal or landmark. The good life, as my mind generates it, always requires things to be different than they are now: I have more money, more friends, improved health, and a bountiful career, and I live on a beautiful ranch where everything is grown locally and I can spend hours reading every day.

What a good life that will be.

The problem with worrying about the future, or planning for a better life that lives in the future, is that it will never come. As long as you’re waiting for it, or working toward it, your good life will remain out of reach: Even if you achieve what you desire, there will always be something else after it. If your best, contented life consists of a checked list of possessions or experiences or accomplishments that you’re striving for…you’ll never be satisfied.

We know this is true. It’s obviously true, that asking the future to hold your better life sentences you to perpetual dissatisfaction. It’s really easy to forget that the good life is right here in front of us for the taking.

The notably independent thinker Salome Sibonex of

The Black Sheep

wrote something in this vein a few days ago:

“Sometimes the feeling comes first. All the work, worrying, and self-criticism are often in service of achieving a feeling: peace, contentment, acceptance, so on. But the trap is thinking one day you’ll finally achieve your way to those feelings, when they’re within your reach right now…”

“[T]he more we get used to ‘fighting’ our way to our goals, the more we get used to being in a state of fighting for our goals…not being content with achieving them.”

Sibonex is not saying that we should just quit trying for anything better or striving toward what we want. She’s saying that you really can feel better, calmer, contented, at peace with the way things are right now—and that if you realize that, you may actually find it easier to meet what you want.

“Trust me, my overachiever self is not telling you to delude yourself into believing you’ve already made it or to stop striving for anything more. The paradox is that the more you practice feeling stressed about not achieving your goals, the more that state becomes a home to you.”

The hard truth is that some of us get addicted to being hard on ourselves and justify this by believing it will make us better…but is it?

I’ve learned the hard way that finding contentment with my life right now instead of chasing it in the future actually helps me achieve my future goals AND my ultimate goal: a contented life.”

Essentially, we become accustomed to our most frequent states of being; this warrants asking ourselves what those most frequent states are. What states have become home to you? What do you rehearse in your body? Is it anxiety or stress? Is it lack, longing, or depletion? How do you generally feel about the gap between what you have and what you want?

If you have any choice in what states of being become your home, you’re most familiar feelings—maybe you ought to rehearse feeling content or appreciative. What about filling up on what’s beautiful, instead of dwelling in what’s wrong? The former is a more expansive, creative place: if you can live from this place, you could probably be a more productive member of the world and a nicer person to be around. Can you see if you can fill up on what’s beautiful as life is serving you right now? Can you entertain the idea that the good life is…this one you’re living?

I think one of the common fears that circulates this concept of constantly striving for better—whether you’re striving for better in a societal, interpersonal, or individual sense—is the fear of settling. It’s the fear of things never getting better, or not being good enough. If you’re worried that subbing in some contentedness or gratitude will mean that you start settling for lackluster circumstances or being treated poorly—don’t. That’s not what practicing gratitude will do to you, if you’re doing it honestly. On the contrary, it’ll allow you to fully participate in co-creating your good life, right now. It’ll make today worth living.

What does your good life even consist of? If I ask myself what my contented life really consists of, it’s not necessarily about what I have—although I do have plenty of aspirations. Rather, it’s the feeling I have about my life. If I focus on the bounty and beauty of what’s here now, I actually don’t become a pacified slug, unmotivated to make change. I notice how I already have the capacity to be satisfied, today. Staying in that state of being makes working for what I do want easier, more enjoyable. I feel more open and ready for what may be around the corner, without pinning so much pressure onto a hypothetical future. As that future becomes the present, I feel calmer, softer, more contented.

And isn’t that what the good life is all about?

Attaching your satisfaction and peace to a theoretical place far off in nowhere land guarantees a life of discontent. It’s possible that many of your dreams or goals that will supposedly bring you contentment may not ever be actualized. By the time you reach those desires, you might not even want them anymore. They may not even bring that feeling you long for.

Thus, you don’t have to constantly keep your mind on what’s wrong to make things better, or on what you want in order to get there. Focusing elsewhere—feeling how you think you’ll feel then, now—may allow you to more easily achieve those things, anyways.

The contented life doesn’t live in the future—it can only be here, now. So here, now, is where we must practice living it.

Cheers to your good life!

Maggie