Isn’t it okay to be satisfied? After all, the alternative is to be unsatisfied. Who in their right mind would opt for that? Long ago, my grandmother told me that “one has to learn to be satisfied if they are to find happiness in life.” It seemed to make sense then. Besides, everyone knows that grandmothers are never wrong…are they? Personal experience tells me that there is a great satisfaction in having “put in a good day’s work,” assisted a neighbor, helped a troubled motorist, pridefully watched your child participate in some school activity. Satisfaction seems to be as much a part of life as breathing. Still, there is a danger…a great danger. For satisfaction and complacency live in the same house. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak. To be satisfied with life as it is, is to ignore the need to make a difference; to ignore God’s desire to “make all things new.” It is like the old saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” But it is broke!
We live in a society where putting in a “good day’s work” is simply dream for many unemployed; helping the neighbor means helping whoever happens to be sleeping next to you in the shelter. Then there is me, who has far too often used the “everybody’s doing it” excuse, to justify my doing what it is that I know you should not do. God is not done with me yet. He isn’t done with you either. Nor is He done with the society in which we live. He counts on our being dissatisfied enough that we will want to make a difference.
Father Bill Myrick
Why We Are Here
God has created me to do some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission…I may not know it in this life, but I shall be told it in another.
–Cardinal Newman
The world cannot be changed by the satisfied person, neither can they be changed.
