An Agreeable Discontentment

I could never put my finger on it growing up, whether it was the inability to sit still or pay attention to singular things for long periods of time, or if it was just the fact that I never felt quite right no matter where I was, but for some reason, I do believe that I have never felt ever really, truly, content.

    That’s not to say that I have never felt comfortable. I’ve just never really ever felt content.  For most of my life leading up to now, that has left me with emptiness, resentment, and a growing source of anger within my own psyche. I’ve never been a docile person. Anger and aggression always has a way of contorting my emotions. Regardless of if I outwardly showed it or not, I felt upset often. If i’m honest with myself, which is something admittedly I should be more, I still get upset quite often. However, do not mistake that for me doing nothing in the face of a situation that I can full well rightfully change.

    See, in the past, I would let myself get so upset that the very thing I was afraid of or upset about would permeate out of my own mind into all the other things that I let dictate my life at the time. In college, for example, afraid of being the slowest one on the track during a race? Run more miles. So many miles, in fact, that I gave myself overtraining syndrome not once, but three times, each of those followed by multiple bouts of rhabdomyolysis, a condition where too much protein is released into the bloodstream. I could have shut down my liver AND kidneys in one fatal too-long-of-a-jaunt if I wanted to. In the current, afraid of being the only one on the fire ground that can’t shoulder a ladder and throw it to the correct spot alone? Do it repeatedly until your shoulder is so bruised that you can’t even reach your back to wash in the shower. The problem between those two examples wasn’t that I was training too hard. Believe me, I still run a lot of miles and love it. I still train on the fire ground with my shift officers as much as they’ll let me. The problem that occured there was why I was training and how it would lead to an unhealthy level of training. If you want to be good at something, do it a lot. If you want to be the best at something, find a reason why.

Every little girl and boy wants to grow up to be a hero. I was no exception. Every river rat, climbing dirtbag, trail junkie, you name it-wants to become a legend. No one who ever cared about being good at anything would flat-out tell you that they were okay with being the one person in the middle of the pack, no so great as to be the best, but not so piss-poor that they were the worst. The supporting characters in the movies never get the medal at the end, and the sidekick never gets the girl (or guy, it’s 2019). Why in the hell would anyone ever aim to be the sidekick? 

That’s the simple point in all this complexity within myself then. I am born to be discontent. I am created, beautifully, as the rest of the people on this planet with a deep-set characteristic within myself to not be okay with mediocrity. The difference between myself and everyone else on the planet, and everyone else on the planet from everyone else as well for that matter is that we’re all created to do something different. The world wouldn’t turn if everyone wanted to be some war-hero or climb 5.15. There are men and women out there that are discontent with being a sub-par parent, so they aim, work, and strive to be the best mom and dads that they can be. There are people out there that believe that others aren’t doing a good job of teaching their students well enough. So, they make themselves into the best educators that set foot in their schools. There are people out there that are straight-up upset with the conditions that others have to live in throughout the globe, so they’ve made it their purpose to make those conditions better.

The “problem” that I was facing in my own discontentment wasn’t a problem at all, but rather something I believe was intended to be born within me. A sort of “agreeable discontentment” that is there for a reason. A God-given gift that leaves me with the unquenchable thirst to be good at what I do simply because I have to. I mean this with all that I am when I say this then-I am happy that I am discontent. It is the fuel for the fire that burns within myself that wills me forward. It is the ever-so-small voice that rings from the back of my skull that tells me to get up early in the morning when I have to be on shift. It is the notion forever ingrained in the back of my mind, “if not me, then who?” I may never be a legend, I may never be a hero, and I may never amount to anything more than someone who “cared just a little too much” but I’ll be damned if I don’t try to make something of myself in this crazy world.

I can walk among the company of heroes, and in the footsteps of legends. I can follow leaders who have had to make the greatest of decisions in the darkest of hours. I can continue to learn from those who will let me listen to them, to those who are willing to pass down the priceless lessons of those before me. In the same, I can either feed the black dog of depression and anger, or starve it. The decision is up to me. I can only pray, and work as damn hard as I can, that someday, when I am the one who has to make the decision, or lead a group of those like me, that I worked hard enough. That I paid enough attention to the ones that had come before me. That I am humble enough to accept that I am not the only one who can lead or help.

I am still discontent. My reasoning now behind all of it is different though. It is an agreeable discontentment. One that I only can pray will bring a sense of fulfillment for others around me and myself, if not but someday in the wide open, bright future.