I guess that’s what you call it when someone is randomly thinking about and wishing for things that will never happen, right?
I think a lot of my conscious life is spent maundering, actually. I always want something to be different, or, if I like the way something is at the moment, I want it to stay that way forever, with no consequences.
I’m sure I’m no different from most of society, though. People seem to be pretty caught up with making as much as they can of their lives fit their desires. I don’t think I’d go overboard with it, but it would be nice to have some big things go my way. I feel like the little things are mostly ok, but I worry about things with more impact on my life than whether my peach pie turns out or not. Things like job, money, health (physical and mental), success in school or business, lots of big-ticket items that I really have no control over. It’s a little scary, actually.
Ok, it’s a lot scary. My usual reaction to that is probably not as helpful as it might be: I go find a book where everything ends well, mostly because someone worked hard to get it to do that, and I escape from life. Not a stellar reaction, I admit. My other reaction is to try to control everything in my life, which usually ends up in my screaming at someone I didn’t mean to and going complete nutto. Gotta find a middle ground there.
The reason I’m thinking about this is because of something the pastor said at church this weekend. The sermon was about contentment and about how all of us were rich by Bible-time standards. He talked about how being discontented with what you had could lead to trouble. Mostly financial, but I got the idea of the “not-of-this-world” trouble too. The thing is, I agree and disagree with him. Ok, so we can’t live in mud huts and go fishing for our daily food like they did in Bible times. To start off, we’d freeze in the winter, especially here in Minnesota! And I admit to having kind of a distaste for the people I see who have five cars and a large fancy house (in Minnetonka, where even a tiny house is way overpriced). I look at them and think, What do they need that for? What do they even do with it?
But honestly, that’s probably what a lot of the people I saw in Bangkok thought when they saw us foreigners shopping. Picky about the size, the color, the pattern. There’s a T-shirt you can get over there; on the front it says “Same Same” (which is the usual Thai way of trying to get the foreign shopper not to be so picky) and on the back it says “But Different” (which is, probably, the foreign comeback they often hear).
We are very picky about what we buy. I like leaves on things, but not all leaves. I have some seagulls, but that doesn’t mean I want them all over everything. I like green in my kitchen, but not every green matches. I guess it’s the discontent, trying to control tiny aspects of our environment because we can’t control the big stuff.
So, I guess, my problem is whether I should be less picky, not always wishing for something different, better, more. We are very rich by a lot of standards. We really don’t have much money, but we’re not on food stamps…yet. I like to have a nice house where everything looks like it fits together, like it belongs, and not some collection of miscellaneous castoffs. But at the same time, I get annoyed having to constantly think about the floors in the house, whether it’s the wood-laminate kitchen, the white (!) rug, or the tile in the bathrooms; worrying about what is dripping or spilling or smearing. I don’t like that, but I like that our house looks nice. I want nice things, but I don’t like worrying about them. I want to be able to get what we want, but I don’t want to be spoiled or selfish either.
I guess I don’t really know what I want. I think it all boils down to “moderation”. As long as having what I want doesn’t mean forgetting others, maybe it isn’t so bad. As long as my discontent is more for how others are treated than for myself, maybe the level is ok. As long as my interest in things is lower than my interest in people, maybe I’m all right. And maybe not. How to tell?
I guess it’s a moot point right now anyway. 
