I have what I need. What I don’t have I don’t need…right now. Easy peasy and that’s the end of my blog.
I wish it were so easy. It’s not so peasy either. Contentment…it’s a big pill to swallow; a big girl pill, and not one of those orange flavored chewables.
Contentment is often compared with happiness, but being content has more to do with surrender and resting peacefully in whatever situation you may find yourself in, while happiness, being contentment’s sun shiny sister, is more dependent on good things happening and is easily extinguished. However happiness should never be confused with euphoria. Euphoria is pure rapturous bliss and you need a rocket launcher to reach it.
Euphoria is so rare that it should be banned from normal dictionaries and only recorded in celestial books along with the last names of the residents of Cloud Nine and the addresses of the Archangels.
Euphoria. Who invented this word anyway? It had to have been a man because women, by virtue of their subservient history…and monthly visitor, are automatically excluded from ever being able to imagine such a word. Euphoria…rapturous bliss…really?
I can just see the guy who drummed this one up. He’s sitting drunk and bitter, straining to read by the dim light of his stubby candle. It’s Friday night and he just got through with a long week of trimming the decaying fat from rancid sows at the open aired butchery. His wife hates him because of their poverty and refuses to sleep with him. His wine flask is empty and he’s contemplating suicide. Cursing like a madman his beady eyes suddenly brighten with inspiration. “I’ll invent a word that will make everyone in the world feel cheated and as miserable as me. EUPHORIA!!” he shouts, as his hacking laughter fills the filthy air of his stuffy hut. His wife mumbles in her sleep, swatting at bedbugs, while his skinny offspring scratch at their festering sores.
Cynic? Perhaps. But really…Euphoria?! I was going to pitch you a patch of sunshine on being content no matter how deep a mud hole you're stuck in, but the bottom line really is…you have what you need for this moment and if you suck it up long enough things will get better...and I ain't just making this crap up ;)
6 comments:
Hi Leah, Very interesting. I hadn't thought about the varying degrees between contentment, happiness, and euphoria. I will say that I am nearly always content, most of the time happy (which considering our modern world, is a day by day determination...oops, now I am being cynical) and I think I have had brushes with euphoria. One such moment was the moment I was laying on the delivery table as they handed me my new baby girl (37 years ago) I was euphoric.
I will also say, if I was that guy with all that hopelessness and my children had festering scabs they were picking at and if there was no peyote or ditch weed to be found, I might have just offed myself. (just to set the record straight here, I am not now or ever used drugs to make myself feel better but if I were that guy, I would have become a junkie)
Good Morning Cheryl,
Yeah, I’ve had a few brushes with it…but just brushes. Like a peyote rush. (couldn’t resist) I have had dreams where I’ve felt totally euphoric…waking up was hell. LOL!
Euphoria does exist even though it’s usually just a splash here and a dab there…but like rare perfume a little seems to go a long way.
Have you been reading Virginia Woolf's _A Room of One's Own_ perhaps? Because I swear I could see her reincarnated in this post :)))
You got me again, Leah. Contentment I've mastered (and "surrender" is such a beautiful word). Happiness I'm working on. Now, for better or worse I've had moments of euphoria in the past year that have made everyday life look a little pale in comparison. It is difficult to back to "contentment" after that, but I guess one would not be the same without the other...
Have a beautiful day!
Hi Chris,
I'll have to put Virginia Woolf on my reading list...sounds very interesting.
Mastering surrender is easy...I've done it a thousand times. *grin
I agree Chris; euphoria makes everyday life seem like a dull task at times. But I still need the magic of euphoria to elevate my expectations of life.
Thanks for you wonderful post. You always say things so well.
Hahaha! That butcher was a Russian right? Because this has gotten Gogol all over it! Yes, yes, diary of madman... 'twas the madman who came up w/that word! :)
(And you are SO right. Suck it up, baby. I tell myself that often enough so I know I'll come out that sludge. It works!)
Haha! And sucking it up does work but it requires massive maturity...which I only possess on Tuesdays and the third Sunday of the month;)
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