No Thank You, I'm Satisfied

When I was little my Mom and Dad would take my sister and I out to dinner on Saturday nights once in a while. We always went to the same place, The Sunset. My Mom always ordered seafood or fish, my Dad usually had some type of Surf 'N Turf and my sister and I typically experimented. I often explored Italian food like Veal Parmigiana. That quickly ended once I realized what goes on behind the scenes to produce veal.

I would eat as much as I could and still have a ton leftover on my plate. My Dad would say, "That's all you're going to eat?" and I would force myself to take a few more bites. My Mom had, and still does have, a huge sweet tooth. She loved dessert and always looked forward to it. Sometime I would try to eat a sundae or a piece of cake but was never very successful. My Dad never ordered dessert because he knew that between the three of us there would be more than enough.

After dinner we had a certain "ritual" if you will. We did the same thing every time like clockwork. My sister and I would be the first to give up, put our forks down and slouch back in our seats. Then my Mom would follow suit, only she would say something really dramatic like, "I'm so full, I feel like a stuffed cow." My Dad would look at her and say something to the effect of, "Oh you didn't have that much to eat!" He would pay the bill and our bloated family would head home.

From these outings I learned many things besides where veal comes from. I learned that I didn't like the feeling of being full. In fact, I hated it. Being full and having a stomach ache because you ate too much just seemed like such a stupid thing to do to yourself. As I got older I became more aware of that feeling. I realized that before you get full, you get to a point where you are satisfied. You're no longer hungry, you're craving has been met and you are 100% satisfied.

Satisfied? Well that doesn't sound like any fun does it? Even the word satisfactory makes us cringe and sets into motion a self analysis of what we could have done better or how we could improve. No one wants to be satisfied. We learn at a young age that we want more...we want to be super-sized...we want to be full. The problem occurs when this transcends food and controls other parts of our life and our happiness.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way we could monitor our "hunger" if you will, for everything in life, besides food? When do we get to a point where we are satisfied with the other parts? And is it bad to be satisfied? Do we always need something better, something new? Will we ever look at our job and be satisfied with our work or will we always wonder if there is a better position out there? Will we ever be satisfied with our paycheck or will we always be hungry to make more money? Do we see ourselves ever being happy with the amount of cars or shoes or clothes we have? When do we get to that point, that critical point of just being satisfied?

Being satisfied isn't bad but we are trained to go beyond satisfactory with everything. We don't settle for a satisfactory anything, we know there has to be something bigger, better and more expensive out there. How do we train ourselves to be happy with the four pairs of black shoes we already have at home? Or the 5000 songs that we already have on our iPod? I don't know if there is a way of getting that sense of fulfillment by looking at the "stuff" we already own, but wouldn't it be nice if it was just as easy as having too much chocolate cake?

It's a muddled and equally dangerous line that we walk between the feeling of stuffed and the feeling of content. "Being happy with what you already have" sounds like such easy advice but it may just be the hardest advice to follow.