A woman sits at a bar surrounded by friends, glass of champagne in her hand with her head thrown back with laughter, blonde hair canvassing down her back. She’s got the great job and living in a great city. Her apartment overlooks the lights of downtown, she’s single and meeting the most interesting men and she travels to places many can only dream of.
Does she “have it all?”
She doesn’t think so, in fact, she told me just the other day, “I guess you can’t have it all.”
On the outside, to me, she looks like she has everything. Life is never boring, she has enough money to pay the bills with extra leftover to travel. She has a slew of friends throughout the country, she’s gorgeous and she’s got a job that she really feels good about. What more is there? Sure, I guess there’s the husband and kids and a white picket fence if that’s what you’re into–but what if that’s not her path? What if that part of the societal puzzle will never be filled? Will she then never have it all? Or will she just feel like she will never have it all because of the pressure that comes with trying to fulfill that picture that we have in our minds?
What does “having it all mean?”
Sometimes I feel like we mistake contentment with failure. Because we don’t have the great job and the perfect body and the husband and the car and the kids and the money to travel (good lord, I’m exhausted just writing all of that) at this exact moment, that we are somehow inferior or failing.
Wait, what?
If you have just two of those things happening in your life at the same time, I think that is an overwhelming success. Can we just be content with having a few things that make our life happy? I may not have kids, but I have a job that I really feel like I’m making a difference. Or, I’m not working but my kids are the light of my life and I have so much fun watching them grow up happy and healthy. To me, that one thing in life that truly brings us joy is the real definition of having it all. The contentment that comes with being satisfied with where your life is in this moment is really what our focus should be on.
Besides, what’s the fun in having everything? Then you have nothing left to strive for, to dream about or to set goals for. For me, I know I have it all. Not all right now, but throughout my life I have had it all or maybe will in the future. I had the ,college wild stage where we stayed up till 3 and danced with strangers. I had the, right-out-of-college stage where I had no idea where my life was going but I had my friends right down the hall to talk for hours and try to figure it all out. I had the, on-my-own stage where I really made myself a priority to travel and see the country. I had the, scary but thrilling, buy your own house and really become an adult stage. I had the, my job is my whole life stage, and my next stage will be marriage. Will we have kids? Maybe, but if not, I know the next stage of life will bring me something that I haven’t had before, something new and exciting that I will wonder how I ever lived without it.
My point here is, don’t diminish what you have in this season of life. No one has it all, all the time. Hell, no one has it all, even half of the time. Enjoy what you have right now. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Don’t let those instagram highlights make you feel like you don’t have it all, ’cause honey, you do! Take that one thing in life that brings you the most joy and be content with it. Continue to strive for what you want and reach your goals, but don’t let the fact that you don’t have them right now, bring you down.
Here’s wishing you and yours a very bright new year of having it all!
Love,
American Beautiful
Love, American Beautiful 