
If all things are measured, and surely, in some fashion they are, what tips the scale that, say, makes a good day a great day? What moves the needle on our internal contentment meter from okay to wonderful? What shifts the sighing in our hearts to singing? What happens or shows up that prompts us to think or say out loud that our good lives have become the best they can be?
It might be that there are many external factors that come into play in tipping the scale. Our favorite sports team wins a championship game. An unexpected phone call or visit from a grandchild surprises us with delight. Rain showers forecast for the afternoon dissipate and yield to cheerful sunshine. We arrive at the drive-through window of our favorite coffee shop and learn that the person ahead of us paid for our latte. These kinds of things give our sagging spirits a much-appreciated lift. But we can’t really count on such experiences breaking through our mediocrity with their scale-tipping levity, can we? Is this what it is to hope? And is there anything else that can potentially bump the needle so that we could declare without reservation that our lives leap well beyond pretty good all the way to off the charts?
Psychology has its spin on it all, this business of living a human life in ways that make for contentment and joy. Pharmaceutical companies tout that they provide improved happiness through chemical alteration. Religion offers many a place to stand and put down roots that nourish and hold. Culture bombards us with promises of pleasure that hinge largely on economic success as if peace of mind were a simple financial transaction. We suffer no lack of choices. But can/will any or all of these options truly tip the scale of our lives from half full to overflowing?
In their delightful collaboration titled The Lives We Actually Have (Convergent Books, 2023), Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie include a piece in celebration of for what makes us us. They assert that even if we are dubbed “a strange duck,” we are blessed if we have “found (our) people. The ones who understand. Or who seek to.” And who doesn’t bask in the warmth of someone wanting to understand us? And then there are the “specificities that make you, you. The things you notice and the places you want to visit. The eBay search you return to time and again. No matter how quirky or random or obscure.” Ah, blessed acceptance of who we are! The piece closes with these words, “You, my dear, in all your intricacies… are a marvel.” Ah, sweet tipping of the scale from just okay to off the charts!
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