When I was eighteen or nineteen, my then boyfriend gave me a children’s book called Never Satisfied as a gift. On each page of the book, the narrator keeps complaining to his friend that “nothing ever happens around here.” Meanwhile, in the background, the readers watch as somebody starts throwing animals and furniture–a couch, a piano–out of the second story window of a building. The narrator never gets it, never sees all the exciting things happening all around him. Rather, he just keeps complaining that life is boring. I got the gentle message that Tommy was sending, that I was so focused on the life I *wanted*, on my goals and dreams, that I never got around to appreciating the life I already had.

I wish I could say that seeing the truth changed how I lived or how I looked at the world. But it didn’t. To this day, “never satisfied’ describes the emotional core of my life.

Now, there are a lot of ways that you could interpret the phrase “never satisfied.” Some women always want more wealth, more things, expensive jewlery, flashy material items. Read More