Learn to be satisfied. It is just as easy as being dissatisfied – and much more pleasant.” -Jacob de Jager
For over five years now I have been writing a daily blog. The topic of each blog typically stems from something I went through or experienced during that particular day that stuck in my mind as I sat down that evening to write. At times I share lessons I learned as an Entrepreneur and CEO, other times I share lessons that stem from my experience as an Angel Investor. Most days I share lessons I have learned about life in general in the hope that others will benefit from them. Today’s topic came from a simple, yet completely ridiculous, personal experience that ended up reminding me of a very important life lesson that can relate to every aspect of our lives - both personal and business – and I knew I had to share it.
I have been deep in the throws of planning my son’s upcoming wedding and dealing with the million little details that have to all come together to make it a beautiful event for he and his future wife. Part of that process is selecting a venue and understanding all that is included with each venue versus all you need to procure on your own. With one particular venue we are considering they include your tables and chairs for you and then you can cover the chairs with fabric covers that help them match to the colors of the reception. They sent me a photo of their fabric covered chair and it looked just fine to me. I was okay with it being what we used for the reception and thought it would look beautiful.
I was perfectly okay, until I began sifting through hundreds of photos of ideas on how to decorate for the reception and came across a picture of these amazing gold chiavari chairs that looked incredible! I had to have them! I called the venue to ask how I could get those chairs and they explained that you would have to rent them from another vendor and have them delivered and setup and taken down. I called the vendor that rents them and was shocked to find out how much renting these chairs I was in love with would cost. It was a ridiculous price to pay for chairs when the other chairs came for free from the venue. But now I was no longer satisfied with those chairs that were available. I was totally bummed. I knew darn well it would be ridiculous to spend that kind of money on renting chairs when the other ones are included, but now I found myself completely dissatisfied with those chairs.
As I sat there mourning the loss of the beautiful gold chairs and grumbling that the wedding just wasn’t going to look beautiful anymore, I had a sudden moment of “life lesson” hit me. Here I had started out perfectly satisfied with the look of the chairs offered by the venue and feeling good about them, and had I never seen the gold chairs I would have moved forward and never gave a second thought to things not looking nice enough. Yet here I was upset and dissatisfied because I couldn’t have the gold chairs. THAT IS RIDICULOUS (see…I warned you…) So yeah, I had to put my big girl panties on and lift up my bottom lip from the floor and KICK MY OWN BEHIND! Sure the gold chairs would look better, no doubt. But the other chairs will be beautiful and it is just silly to not be satisfied with them.
We spend too much of our lives being dissatisfied because we found out there was something just a little bit nicer out there, and not nearly enough time being satisfied with what we have. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting nicer things – I think they motivate us to work harder in order to have them, which is a good thing! But we can’t get so caught up in it that we end up dissatisfied and unhappy. J. Harold Smith stated it best when he said:
“Be dissatisfied enough to improve, but satisfied enough to be happy.”
~Amy Rees Anderson (follow my daily blog at www.amyreesanderson.com/blog)
