How to find contentment with your lot?

[Thistledew]

Does anyone have tips on achieving contentment in your life? I’ve just had a couple of incidents recently where I’ve tried to achieve something a bit special in my life, but have messed it up and it has slipped out of my grasp. I’m just feeling a bit defeated, a bit like the universe is telling me that exciting and interesting things are not for me. I know I have so much to be grateful for in my life but I’m fed up. How do I get to be happier with the ordinary and stop chasing the extraordinary?

Why would you stop?
the universe IMO isnt telling you anything
why would you stop driving at stuff?

The extraordinary is found in the ordinary.

I find a walk outdoors and marvelling at things in nature makes me feel small in a good way. Sets everything in context.

Because striving for things and failing is really crushing me.

I know it’s not really ‘the universe’, but rather my own failings and incompetence, but it’s easier to frame it in an external sense rather than just admit that I’m not cut out for the life that I would like to lead.

That’s what I mean by contentment- being happy with what is ordinary to you rather than striving for something extra.

What is it that you tried achieve, that didn't work out?

Is it possible to try to reframe the ‘failing’ part… there will have been things you learned, things you would do differently next time…? All of that counts even if you didn’t achieve the final part of it?

is there a way that you can have another go at what you were trying to do?

I echo a pp. I find such calm in being in nature. Fucking love it.

But two things make it possible: The dog and the car. The dog adds immensely to the experience (but not essential). The car is essential.

I have a demanding job that does my head in. A husband who is a tosser. My beautiful daughter who I am losing, just as she gets older. However, walks in the country. The best is a sunrise or sunset means i can manage life.

If nature works for you - great, if not look up meetup.com to find a hobby in your area.

They range from the sublime to the ridiculous:
— My marriage is crap. DH has many fine qualities and I wish I could be content with him, but our relationship really does not meet what I need from it despite years of trying to fix it.
-I let an exciting work opportunity slip through my fingers because I was as paralysed by the challenge as much as I was excited by it
-A potential new friendship which would have met a big need in my life just never launched.
-A stupid thing that got me down today: I had a chance to buy at auction a birthday present which would have been like handing him the moon on a stick, and I made a poor decision which meant I failed to secure the item.

By being grateful for what you do have, which is possibly a lot more than most. I know that can be hard sometimes but it can get you through. Equally just because something hasn't worked doesn't mean to say that the next thing won't bring you what you want.

I read a book some years back - how to do everything and be happy by Peter Jones (recommended on MN). It really reframed my thinking about goals and next steps. Essentially any progress is better than none. Think about what kind of life you want to lead, and why. I found a lot of my wants just faded away when I realised I was basing it on snobbery and what my older sister did. Write a bucket list, and start some next steps.

Try and appreciate what you actually have and not what you nearly or could have had.

Appreciate your family, and friends you have, your health and current life style.

Try and make time for yourself and any hobbies you either have or would like to have.

My career went backwards last year. One year on I'm no longer defining myself by my job. I'm enjoying the daffodils being out. I'm enjoying zero work related stress. I'm a technical accountant in that I report correct numbers, but am not responsible for fixing bad news!

Reframing help as well. I get Sunday evening/monday morning anxiety. Really bad anxiety.

In my head, I try to change it from being nervous / anxious / scared of the volume of work ahead. I can literally shake in bed for an hour (because I wake up early).

I try to think: when I get past my first class i will be calmer (always true); monday is a challenge to be achieved, then the rest of the week gets easier (true). So on.

Then I hum "look on the bright side of life" especially "life's a piece of shit when you look at it" 😏

All the people who are successful will have a million stories of the ways they failed along the way. You are just along the way.

Also why should we all get all the things we want in life? That's just not the way things work out. Look at all the successful people and they could always make one more million or win one more gold medal or whatever. There is no enough if you think like that. All those ambitious dukes who weren't happy unless they were king. Only to get usurped a few years later. There's always someone ahead of you.

Or you could be a wildly rich person with a private island, multiple planes and many of the world's rich and powerful among your friends. No desire to be Epstein, thanks.

What screams out from your last post is how unhappy you are in your marriage, and have been for years. Missing out at an auction somewhat pales in comparison!

Life is just too bloody short for that. Being unhappy in such a basic area of life, your living conditions, is really the first (and only) thing you should probably be addressing at the moment.

I don't think you should give up and there's lots of useful advice above. But in answer to your question, when I feel like that I compare my life to that of women elsewhere in the world - living in warzones or under repressive regimes or to nearly all my female ancestors and realise that to them my ordinary life, with its food, shelter, financial independence and healthcare, must look like a dream.

You are imagining outcomes that might not be, or dont matter. So you lost an auction. No big deal. A friend that would fill a need in your life is a huge pressure for a new acquaintance.

When you say you fail at work is at an outright fail or something you caj try again? I've recently completed a degree. It included two resits. They weren't fails they were stumbling blocks that I overcame.

with all due respect, a couple of the examples you have described are not trying at all. They are settling and avoiding.

You avoided taking on a job which could have been challenging and with it nourished your soul.

You have tried to improve your marriage, but it's not going anywhere and sounds disappointing, so surely the actual trying and bravery is in ending it?!

The friendship - well some just don't launch. And buying at auctions is unpredictable at the best of times.

I don't think the answer here is to stop trying at all, and stop striving but quite the opposite - dig deeper, try new things, get some therapy on your marriage and work out if what you don't get from it is a deal breaker. Never accept the ordinary when we live in an extraordinary world and lead short lives

"When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either" Leo Burnett

Spend a few minutes every day counting your blessings.

If I had settled for my "lot" I would have married a working class man, had a couple of snotty nosed kids and ended up in a shitty little mid terrace like my parents. Neither of them owned a passport, a bank account or a phone til the late 1970s. If someone had told me at 16 that I would eventually go to uni, get my doctorate and become an academic I would have laughed. You gotta make things happen if you want them.

I am content. I have had many difficulties in my life; a crap marriage that cost me financial
security, a relationship with an abusive and controlling man that led my to consider suicide, a difficult mother, a child with significant disabilities.
BUT, I now live in a home I can afford, that is peaceful and calm, I have a job that brings me satisfaction, I have wonderful friends, my children are healthy , I am healthy, I have pets and my garden and freedom to take part in hobbies. Nothing earth shattering, but I take pleasure every day in the small things that go well and I am content.

Appreciate what you have