Be Happy With What You Have

The other day Josh and I were talking about what would have happened if we had stayed together back when we were young.  I commented that I thought that he would have, in his 15 year old brain, been content to hit it and quit it and we would have never ended up together long term.  He didn't agree with me, which was nice and made me feel bad about my cynicism.  I kept thinking about how that situation would have turned out.  Would I have been happy only having ever been with one person?  Would I have been content committing myself to one person literally FOREVER?  Would I have felt cheated that I didn't get to explore who I was without him?  The answer to all of those questions is that I probably would have.  But then I started to ask myself why. 

My maternal grandparents are in their 80's and have been together since my grandmother was 13. She had her first child at 14 and continued to have five more throughout the years.  I am certain that my grandparents have not always liked each other. They have not always wanted to be together.  I'm sure that there were weeks that my grandmother was SO happy when my grandpa left on Sundays for his out of town work, even if he was leaving her with all those kids, just so he would get out of her space. The thing is that they do have is loyalty.  They have a sense of commitment that you can't find today. They stuck it out no matter what happened. And now, 70 years later, they are still together. 

My Grandparents, quite a few years ago, with their Great Grandchildren

That's something that people don't do anymore.  Society is always reaching for the next goal, the next level.  There is always a constant "What if".  I read a statistic the other day that more kids live in households with step-parents than with both of their real parents.  Obviously, I don't get to speak out against divorce.  I've done it.  Twice. But how sad is it that we have become a society of people who are always looking for something better?

Hindsight is 20/20 and it's happy to think that if we had been a little smarter back in the day we would have been able to stick it out for the long haul.  I know that the experience of 32 years and 2 divorces (not to even speak of the numerous other failed relationships) have prepared me to be happy now.  To know that it's way more important to resolve issues and figure them out then give up and walk away. To think in the happy part of my brain that the reason it didn't work out when we were younger is so that we could grow and learn so that it could work out now.  I know that the grass is greener where you water it.  But it took all of those other stupid experiences to come to that realization.  

What if we were all just happy with what we have when we have it?  What if we weren't always looking for the next best thing, not necessarily just in relationships, but in life? What if we realized that more isn't always better?  I think that we would all be a whole lot happier. And we would probably realize who we're supposed to be with the first time, instead of 18 years later.