I recently listened to one of my favorite new-ish podcasts, Best of Both Worlds. In one episode, author and speaker Laura Vanderkam talked about re-framing mom guilt by calling it wistfulness. Vanderkam said that instead of feeling guilty when you’re working and subsequently not with your children, you should instead acknowledge the feeling as wistfulness–a feeling of longing for something while also knowing not all ideal situations can exist in the same moment.
I love that. At least once a day I feel a sense of wistfulness towards some area of my life.
While walking in a beautiful neighborhood after work tonight I felt wistful about owning a different home.
While enduring a rare but particularly taxing day at work I felt wistful for the life of my stay-at-home mom friends.
Did it make me jump to list my house or quit my job? No. Nor did I allow the feeling to linger to the point of despair. And that’s what makes the wistfulness concept so great. It acknowledges our often fleeting feelings of desire for something different than our present situation, while not discrediting the lives we live.
These wistful feelings got me thinking about the concept of good enough.
There are many areas in my life where from the outside, it may appear that I’ve sacrificed something, but from the inside, I’ve accepted good enough.
I’m not a full-time artist or entrepreneur like I’d once imagined, but I write daily, have wonderful co-workers and benefits, and can easily take time off from my job for a day or two of creative rest. (And, I’ll be starting my MBA this fall, free of charge, at the University where I work.)
Our house is not the biggest or fanciest in town, but our mortgage payment is a small fraction of our income and I can honestly say we use nearly every square foot of our comfortable, inviting home.
Unless we have unlimited funds and unlimited time, we’re always being forced to make choices. And instead of turning my wistfulness into envy or hopelessness, I’m accepting the good enough in my life.
source
source