Wanting what you got

I received three totally unrelated items in my mailbox this morning. Or are they? The first was a newsletter from the NH Food Bank. The front page article referenced the phrase "happiness is not getting what you want, it is wanting what you get." A nice phrase to start the day on a positive note.

The next item in my mailbox wasn't quite as uplifting. It was an invitation to join AARP. I'm celebrating #45 this month - isn't this invitation coming a bit early? I mean, in this economy I'm all for any discount I can get - except the AARP one. A lousy way to make me realize I'm not as young as I used to be.

The third item was a news magazine called American Profile that comes tucked inside my original hometown newspaper. That gets mailed out to me from Illinois, so it is often a few weeks late arriving. But the cover story, the link to which is provided above, was about working Centenarians. That's right, people who are 100 years old and still working! Now some days I might look at this as a pessimist and say 'great, I've got 55 more years of work ahead of me.' But not today, fresh off my AARP invitation. Nope, I had the optimistic viewpoint of 'I've made it this far and I've got the potential to still be productive 55 years from now!'

Okay, so I must admit in the back of my mind I did think "and it's a good thing, because my 401k still hasn't recovered so I'm going to need a good job at 100."

So how does this relate to wanting what you got - well I'm not totally sure, but somewhere in my mind I have to say that it has something to do with being grateful that I'm still here, and healthy, and doing something I love (most of the time). And that is the essence of wanting what you got, isn't it?