Learning the Art of Being Content

The other day, I was walking with my son to get an ICEE from 7-Eleven on the way to the park. He was riding his scooter when he said, “Mom, I am the luckiest boy.”

I smiled and asked him why.

“I get to see the coolest cars,” he said.

My son is a car guy and has been since he was about eight months old. “Car” was one of his first words, and he has loved anything with wheels ever since. So, his answer didn't surprise me.

At first, I thought it was insightful because he really does get to see some pretty cool cars. We live in the Bay Area, and there are plenty of nice cars around. We mostly see Teslas, but we also drive by the McLaren dealership sometimes. He'll comment on how pretty the McLaren cars are, and my husband will nod in agreement.

So, when he made his statement about seeing cool cars, I thought I understood exactly what he meant.

But then he threw me a twist.

“I get to see cars with so many colors,” he further explained.

Was he talking about the make or type of car?

No. He meant that he got to see cars in colors from all over the rainbow.

This made me laugh, and it has stayed with me. At first, I was struck by the irony of what he said. Here I was thinking about expensive cars and McLarens, while he simply felt lucky to see cars in lots of different colors.

But the more I've thought about it, the more I've reflected on the way my son experiences contentment. His life feels full to him, and he recognizes the things that make him happy.

Overall, I would say that I find joy in my life and am happy with what I have. But the comparison game can still feel like a strong force. There will always seem to be someone with more or nicer things. I am generally good at not feeding the comparison, but when it starts, it can be hard to stop.

My son came home from TK the other day talking about shoes. He had worn the wrong type of shoes and couldn't participate in the jumping activity during PE. He told me that he needed to wear tennis shoes on PE days. I laughed at his rule-following attitude and told him we would make sure to remember for the next PE day.

But then he told me that the other kids had cooler shoes than him. Their shoes would light up, have multiple colors, or feature cool characters. His current tennis shoes were gray.

And there it was—the beginning of the comparison game, starting as early as TK.

My son is still the kid who thinks he is the luckiest because he can walk to three different parks from his apartment. But I'm sure he will continue to notice differences and eventually ask why other people have things that we don't.

I'm not sure what the antidote to comparison is. I would probably attribute part of it to gratitude. I think modeling and teaching gratitude can help our children counterbalance the tendency to compare themselves to others.

Maybe contentment doesn't mean that we never notice what other people have. Maybe it means learning how to notice those differences without losing sight of what is already good in our own lives.

I think that is something my son, and probably the rest of us, will continue learning.