Worth Reading: Being Content

Go here for a great article on being content living with less.  As newlyweds, I believe contentment is something that is easy to struggle with.

Worth Reading: Post on Contentment

Newlyweds, in general, I think struggle with contentment.  Maybe it's because we rent and want to own houses, are childless and want children, have old cars and college loans from college, and have to compromise on holiday gifts.

No matter the reason, it is something that newlyweds and many people struggle with.  I found a great article here today, entitled In Christ Alone.  It is a great encouragement to those feeling discontent during this season of their lives.

Choosing Contentment: Part 3

Strategy 3:  Remind Yourself of What You Have

As November continues to roll on through and Thanksgiving starts to creep closer, I started thinking about all of the songs that we used to sing at our Thanksgiving programs.  One yearly favorite is "Count Your Many  Blessings."  If you are unfamiliar with the song, here are the lyrics

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,

And you will keep singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,

Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;

Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy

Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

Do not be disheartened, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
-Johnson Oatman Jr.

As I was reading through the lyrics the message hit me hard.  When we are discontent we are telling God that He's not enough and that heaven is not enough.  How can we, mere humans, say that God is not enough?  Despite this, because we are sinners, we will continue to have to fight our human nature towards discontentment.

 

I grew up middle-lower economic class.  My parents were afraid that we would discriminate against people because of their economic status.  They tried to expose us as much as possible to people of lower economic status, so that we would realize that they are people just like people who had nicer houses.  They delivered free Bibles to people that requested them, and we would often drive into rough parts of cities.  While many parents would shield their children from these areas, my parents tried to use these areas to teach us lessons, including being thankful for our easy access to Bibles.

 

When we would make comments about the deterioration of the house we were visiting, or the uncleanliness, or any other negative thing my parents would continually remind us to be thankful that we have the money to buy cleaners and the money to repair parts of our home.  They constantly reminded us that we were so lucky to be in a situation where we had two parents that had high levels of education that could teach us the importance of school and saving.  They would constantly remind us that many other people do not have supportive families that give us strategies to succeed in life.  But that despite these set backs, everyone should have access to the best reward, a relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ.

 

One of my parents' favorite things was to drive through a really bad trailer park before going to the mall.  When we were in the mall and we would ask for expensive name brand items, my parents continually asked us whether we really wanted the item for the item or for the label.  If it was for the label, why?  Were we trying to impress someone?  Money comes and goes, so if we are using that as a way to win friends, then we are looking for friends that won't last.  Furthermore, are we looking for the thrill of the "buy"?  If so, the thrill will die after we buy it.  They would sing, "I am going to a city, where the roses never fade," to help remind us that the items that we buy at the mall will fall apart.  However, our treasures in heaven will never fade.

 

So when discontentment and covetousness creeps in, count your blessings and analyze what you are desiring.  Is what you are desiring something that you want for status?  Do you think that status will bring you contentment or will it just whet your desire even more?  Do you want the item to make your life easier?  Will that one item be enough?  Or will you then need more?  Are you desiring earthly items or are you seeking after God?

 

In conclusion, I am not condemning all purchases.  However, when we get to a point of discontentment due to "lack of stuff", I would just suggest reviewing the large amount of "stuff" that we have already acculumated and analyze how much happiness has it brought us.  Once we get that new item will it be enough, or we just adding to an endless cycle?  In choosing to be contentment, it is important to focus on what we have, and really to focus on the most important priority in our life our eternal reward.

 

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Feel free to share any stories or strategies that you have found to help you during times of discontentment.

Choosing Contentment: Part 2

For part 2 of Choosing Contentment, I would like to delve slightly deeper into following strategy:

Strategy 2:  Surround yourself with things that bring contentment.

This is the inverse of the last strategy (remove the things that cause discontentment).  First, get out a piece of paper and list what people make you feel content.  Contentment is sometimes a vague idea, so if you are having problems coming up people in this category, list people who when you are around them you a) rarely feel the need to buy anything, b) never feel like you need to hide your frugality from, c) feel happy with your life,  and d) don't feel the need to live up to a certain standard.

These people are worth more than their weight in gold.  Your goal for the next week is to plan ways to be around them more than you have been recently.  Invite them over for dinner and games, send them an email, call them on the phone, do whatever you can to be around them.  It is easy to isolate yourself in our present day society, or to get too worried about what the house looks like, how much work it will be to have people over.  However, I would really push for you to spend more time with these people.

When I was a senior in high school I had to do a paper on anything American.  At the time I was interested in psychology.  I decided that I would write my 18 page paper on a famous American pyschologist.  Little did I know that there are not many well known American psychologists.  I ended up writing a paper on Edwin Sutherland.  I struggled and struggled to understand the information that I had on him.  I spent hours and hours reading over his work.  After all of that time researching, I realized that the overarching theme amongst his studies was a phrase my grandmother used to say "Garbage In, Garbage Out."  Edwin Sutherland's work demonstrated that the large negative effect certain people can have on you and the positive effect others can have on you as well. 

It was such a simple idea, that it was difficult to write a paper on, but now as I look back on it, this simple idea could have a profound impact on your life.  If you applied it to the people who you hang out with at work, on weekends, the tv you watch, the radio you listen to, the internet sites you visit, the books and magazines you read, I'm sure it would change things.  This pertains to the contentment issue, in that being around people who are happy and content with little can many times help you realize your wealth and be thankful for your own situation.

In summary, my challenge to you and to myself for this week is to surround yourself with people who make you content and happy with your life.  Try to learn what you can from them.  Tell us about your experience.

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What people give you contentment?  Tell us about them.  Is there anything we can learn from them?

Choosing to be Content: Part 1

In order to fully explore how my husband and I are choosing to be content, I think you need a background story.  First, I am a math teacher and my husband builds houses for a living.  The classes that you take to become a math teacher do an amazing job at refining your logic and analyzing skills, but they lack in one area: how to present your amazing analyses to an audience, such as your husband, in a way that is convincing and not overbearing.  My husband loves to have fun and play and create new things for our house, but is slightly less interested in financial matters (or at least not as interested as I am in figuring out how many months it will take us to save x amount of dollars).  He is wonderful in the fact that he deals with me and all of my crazy ideas.

Due to our different interests (mine in numbers and my dh in building), we have a tendency to look at our future of buying/ building a house in completely different ways.  I love to crunch the numbers and look at how long it would take for us to save to pay for our house without taking out a loan, while my husband is constantly imagining new floor plans, the feasibility of a wood shop behind the house, where lots are available, whether he would enjoy building his own house or whether it would be a mistake and we should buy a house rather than build one.

Our conversations often go something like this:
Husband: "I was thinking about the house today."
Me: "Oh really!  So was I!  What were you thinking about?"
Husband: "Well, I decided that the floorplan I last drew up just wouldn't work out right, because of how we want the closets and bathrooms to be laid out.  What do you think about laying it out this way?"
Me: "Oh that looks nice (looking at floor plan, but not really understanding it).  You know when I was thinking about it today, I put the pen to the paper and realized that we could pay out of pocket for a cheaper home in about 24 months if we continue saving like we have, since I started teaching."
Husband:  "Oh that's nice." (still crossing out and adding things to the print)
Me: continuing on.."If we eat out a couple times less per month and cut back in some places, we could have it the same amount saved in 17 months!  What do you think?"
Husband:  "Save more?  Why?  We are doing fine."
And so on...

This leads to our main source of discontentment.  Renting and cutting back.  We have never found anything to be as difficult as knowing that you have enough saved up to buy a house if you were going to buy it the traditional way with a large mortgage, but that instead you are choosing to wait to pay for most of it (if not all) in cash.  It is also difficult to forgo the little splurges that other young couples make, such as fancy cell phones, new vehicles, expensive dinners, beautiful decorations, new furniture, when you know that you can afford them, but that you must save the money instead.  It was much easier to be frugal when you had to be than when you have to choose to be.

The first and one of the most effective strategies that we have found will be discussed in this Part 1 post.

Strategy #1: Identify and then remove (if possible) those things which bring discontentment.

We both analyzed over a few days times when we felt discontent.  After a while we were able to sense a pattern.  I know that any decorating show puts me over the edge.  Any time that I watch one I just want to go out and buy some new furniture and decorations and do a *cheap* $500 makeover of one of my rooms just like they did on the show.  Although I love those shows, I now avoid them.  There will come a day where I will be ready to watch those shows to come up with ideas for decorating rooms, but at this point, we don't need to redecorate the house we are renting.  Our hand-me-down furniture works fine and everything is clean and that is all that really matters.

My husband has found that he often feels discontent when driving by car lots with trucks.  Someday, he would love to get a new truck.  We both know that for now, his old truck may not look the best, but it gets him to and from work everyday and does a great job at holding all of his tools.

So as you go through November, make a mental note of when you feel discontentment or envy creeping in.  I am sure that you will find that it comes around certain triggers.  If those triggers can be removed, such as avoiding advertisements, certain tv shows, certain stores, cut them off as difficult as it may be.

Corollary to Strategy #1:  The things that can cause discontentment could be people.  If at all possible avoid the people that cause you to be discontent, and surround yourself with people who help you be content. 

This may sound drastic and cold, but it works.  At the school that I work at a small group of young female teachers invited to me to eat with them.  They are all very wonderful people, and they were very welcoming.  However, I noticed that much of what they talked about over lunch was about fashion, expensive hair and body treatments, and many things which I was avoiding so that I could save that money towards the house.  They are not close friends, really only acquaintances.  I have found that I feel much more content when I spend my lunch relaxing in my classroom and using my time to read a Bible passage or two.  I still meet with them, just less often.  I have thought about sharing about my way of life, but I just have been too nervous.  It is not that I have chopped any well-off people out of my life, I just have focused on developing relationships with other frugal minded people.

This leads me into other part of that advice: surround yourself with other content frugal people.  I have found much encouragement from my own family, old friends, and from blogs of many women and families who are choosing to save.  When I read those blogs, I actually feel ashamed for how extravagant we are.  There are just so many amazing people out there who are choosing to live well below their means, just so that they can give more!  I strive to get to that point.

As you finish off your week and head into the weekend, just start inspecting your life to find the triggers for contentment and discontentment.

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Have you found any discontentment/contentment triggers in your life?  How have you tried to remove or add them to your life?  Tell us about it in the comments section.

Choosing to be Content: Introduction

The common theme during November is thankfulness.  As I was turning our calendar, I started to think more about this.  A common tradition for my family and many others on Thanksgiving is to share something for which they are thankful.  I have very rarely found it to be difficult to come up with something to say.  However, I sometimes find that the real difficulty for me and my husband lies in being content.  Sure we are thankful to be able to rent a house, but are we really content renting?  We are both glad to have jobs, but are we content with them? 

Throughout the month of November, I will be posting on strategies that we have found help us to be content and willing to wait on God's timing.

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Do you struggle with contentment or have you in the past? What did you find helped you become content?  Feel free to leave your questions or ideas in the comments section.


As part of this series, I would welcome guest posts.  Please leave a message in the comments section if you would like to do a guest post.