We were running today and passed an older lady walking toward us. As we passed her, two young ladies passed her from behind. As they did, she said to us, “I wish I were younger.”
We know what she meant. She wishes she still had the same energy and ability that she did when she was younger. Sometimes that is possible and sometimes it is not.
A great source of discontentment is thinking that things were better at a different time or place. It’s simply not true.
Most of our memories consist of positive things from the past. Nostalgia only remembers the good. I love hearing people talk about the good old days when you walked through the snow in the middle of the night to use the outhouse, threw more coal in the stove at 3 AM and were bather number five in a number two wash tub. I think I’ll keep my indoor plumbing, thank you very much.
When I was younger, I was a lot dumber. When I was younger, my marriage wasn’t as mature. When I was younger, I didn’t have the joy of my children.
I’m grateful for those younger days and I remember them with fondness, but I certainly don’t wish I were back there again.
When Jacob was asked by Pharaoh at the end of Genesis how he was doing he replied, “Few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage.” Really!?! You were just reunited with a son you thought was dead. You just saw all of your children reunited and make up over past grievances. You were rescued from a famine. You were just given the best land to retire in. If that’s few and evil, I’ll take few and evil every time.
It’s not where you are or what you have. It’s what you tell yourself about it that determines your joy.
“Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10
Joel Stiff's Adventure 