Good morning, Gents!

There is nothing quite like having a weekend off, getting up super early (I tend to go to bed super early), enjoying the quite of the morning, before the sun comes up, the birds start chirping (mostly Robins), & people start moving around. Just scrolling Better Bachelor, watching a movie, reading, scrolling YouTube is just very relaxing & serene. Then watching the sun come up & flood my place with light in the cool of the morning with a cup of coffee in my chair. There's nothing like it. It's sublime.

I think that's what it means to be content. Sublime. Are you content? Ever been content? I find that most of the time, I find myself content. Happy. When I'm not at work. In the peace. Maybe in the car with some light music on. Sunshine, 55, & a light breeze. Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa, lol. I'd take a month of sunny 55 days (take or leave the breeze). Sometimes when I'm around people, but more often than not people produce conflict & drama, not peace & joy. But sometimes they do.

What I hate the most about being content is how everyone tries to steal it from you. Like it's a million dollars. Like they could steal yours for themselves. If you see that I have something valuable & you want it for yourself, you can steal it when I'm in the loo. But if you see that I am content, you can't steal it for yourself. It doesn't work like that. The best you can do is deny me having it. And that's what people do. Or try to. And you have to expect that, but what I hate the most is that for the last decade or so, it just seems like everyone is doing it.

How can you be content when Trump is bombing Iran? When gas prices are so high? When prices in general are so high? How can you be content knowing that AI is coming for all of our jobs? That birthrates are low? That marriage rates are low? How can you be content being single? Having no legacy? Not having the latest gadget? Working a dead end job?

What I find the most insidious is when people try to get you to think about or worry about a future regret. I'm content. I've been content for most of my life. But some day, you'll regret this or that. I haven't so far. But you're saying that some magical day, when I turn some magical age, I'll just wake up & regret not having done X, & by then it'll be too late, because I'll be too old or something? Logic demands that I ask that if I'm content & have been for most of my life (in other words, I don't know what I'm missing or ignorance is bliss), how will I suddenly come to regret something? Wouldn't I have been regretting it for some time? All my life, even? It also demands that I ask that there's no way to make peace with it? Okay, I made a bad decision, I wish I had done it differently, but I can't, so I need to make peace with it & move on. I can't do that? This thing (whatever it is) will be so big that I can't make peace with it & move on? It'll dog me the rest of my life? Then, logically, wouldn't that be such a massive regret that I would've known about it long before that magical day? I just can't believe that there would be a regret so big that somehow masked itself for decades only to crop up some magical day in the future.

Here's the funny thing about regrets. I regret a lot of things in my life, but most of the things I regret aren't things that I'm responsible for. I regret actions that I took when I was younger or the way I treated people also when I was younger. I regret a few decisions that I made. But most of the regrets I have are because people didn't behave a certain way. I regret not getting married. I wish women would've been better. I wish society would've been better. I think this woman & I could've had something very special. I wish she could've seen it. I regret not spending time with some friends. I wish they hadn't moved away. With family too. I wish they had been worth spending time with or wanted to spend time with me. I wish it wasn't always drama when I went home. I regret the things I couldn't control.

Some regrets, I think, are inevitable. I wish I had spent more time with my friends in high school. However, from ages 16-19, aside from work, school, sleep, etc, I was out with people every single afternoon, evening, & weekend, until my curfew. I don't regret work or school or curfew, I regret that there weren't more hours in the day, more days in the week, or more weeks in the month. In other words, more things I can't control. I can't control how people behave or society operates & I also can't create more time. I've used my time as best as I can.

I wish I had invested more in this or that, but I only had so much money at the time, & everything I had, I invested. I regret the limitations, I guess, but again, nothing I can control. That's probably different from regretting having not invested everything in the right thing at the right time. I had all this money, but I only invested a little, because I was too cautious or I waited too long. I regret being too cautious. I don't have those kinds of regrets. I don't normally regret not trying. I regret that I didn't have more strength or more stability or more money or whatever, because I invested everything I had, I just wish I had had more. I don't regret not putting myself out there, I regret that putting myself out there didn't matter. But there's nothing I can do about that.

I think the value of peace can't be quantified. And contentment is a wonderful thing. Certainly something to strive for. "Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, & to work with your hands just as we taught you" 1 Thessalonians 4:11. I truly believe this & that there is value in this & have made this a goal in my life.

But, man, everyone & their dog seems to be out to destroy that. And like I said, it's possible that they're envious. Contentment is like a brand new ferrari sitting in the parking lot. They're just waiting for me to go to the loo so they can break in & steal it. Or a million dollars in cash sitting on the kitchen table in front of the window for all to see. They're just waiting for me (not just me, but you too, all of us) to walk into the other room or leave or for work or go to sleep, so they can break in & steal it for themselves. Except they can't steal contentment from you for themselves. The only thing they can do is deny you from having it. And it's disgusting that so many people now think it's okay to do.