What Does It Mean To Be Content?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the story from last week’s letter, the young woman who messaged me after reading my book, specifically the part where she said, “Recently, I’ve been really focused on learning to be content in life.”

The word content is what I’ve been thinking about, specifically the question it raises, a question I’ve carried for most of my life: What does it mean to be content?

Perhaps the answer is found inside the young woman’s statement itself:

She says she is focused on and learning to be content, meaning she’s actively engaged in the process.

Her words feel connected to my signature phrase create a life that feels like home, the throughline that has anchored my writing for more than a decade.

Sometimes we find our flow and enter a space where the pressure is gone, and everything is moving in the same direction. And sometimes, trying to create something meaningful—a life that feels like home—is a slog. We face resistance of all kinds.

It’s the same with learning to be more content in our lives.

There’s a scene in my book where my husband and I are contemplating our next career move. We both worked in the highly competitive field of TV news, and I felt a sudden urge to stay where we were, at least for a while.

My husband was fueled and energized by the desire to move on to the next thing, and I—unexpectedly and inexplicably—was resisting the idea.

“I’m not talking about settling,” I said. “Not the kind of settling that means being complacent. I’m talking about being content. There’s a difference.”

It was the first time I began to sense that I was chasing a dream to fill a void, a void that outward success and accolades could never fill, but I wasn’t able to see or understand that fully yet.

But still, there was an alarm going off inside of me, trying to wake me up and get me to pay attention.

A few months ago, a friend and spiritual mentor sent me a text. He was reflecting on a passage in the Bible about learning to be content in all things.

“It seems that this elusive state of being called contentment,” he said, “comes through loss more than gain. And when it feels as though we are in a place of defeat and even depression, what we are seeking is actually found in this place of unknowns.”

That is essentially the heart of the story I tell in Girl in the Spotlight. When I started to desperately cling to a sense of home in my life, life thrust me into a series of unknowns instead.

I entered an extended season of change and uncertainty that compelled me to face and grieve my losses, and also, begin noticing new things that were right in front of me.

Here’s what I understand, years later: the journey never really ends. It’s not a place where you arrive one time and check the box.

Looking back now, I realize that being content—and creating a life that feels like home—has little to do with staying or going, whether you’re working for a goal or focused on enjoying what you have.

It has more to do with participating in the lifelong practice and process of letting ourselves grieve, moving our bodies, meditation, prayer, activating our senses and living in the present moment, going to therapy, nurturing our relationships, connecting with nature, connecting with a higher power, writing… this is a long and non-exhaustive list.

Creating a life that feels like home means having a place to return—within ourselves—and also a way to return.

We remember that we know the way.

Anytime we’re off-center, a million miles away from what we want or who we really are, we can remind ourselves and allow ourselves to return. Again and again.