email interaction about "satisfaction"

On Tuesday of this week my dear pal Ginger sent an email to a group of her friends with the subject line: "Quote of the Week/Something to Think About". Since I'm lucky enough to be included in that crowd I've enclosed an excerpt of her query below:

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the word "satisfied," and want to simply pose a question: What does satisfied mean to you? Perhaps more pointedly, when is enough truly enough? The first thing that came to mind when I thought of satisfied was that saying, "Stop eating 15 minutes before you are full and you will feel satisfied." Let's be frank, how many of us actually have the restraint to do that. Go with me here on the analogy, because it is precisely that mentality to which I am referring. ...reflect on this a bit, this notion of feeling full in our lives in a balanced way. What does it mean to be satisfied in the different realms of your life, at peace with where things are, not choking on one thing and starving in another. What changes would you make to ensure that you don't have way too little or way too much of anything in your life? ... I challenge us all to ... [become] examples of people who took the time in our crazy, fast-paced, frenetic world to ask ourselves when enough is enough?

Over the last 10 years of my life, living through two bubbles (tech and real estate), and now watching that great casino on Wall Street about to be reconfigured into God-knows-what (it needs reconfiguration but how and by whom?) I have frequently thought that America and Americans are poorly tempered to "know when to say when" - especially when it comes to all things remotely economic. In a capitalist society the economic measure is the ultimate social value (just as in a theocracy it is piousness). I'm as bad as the next person but I have been studying it - in myself and others - mainly because on the large stage it is a good show and personally it is the source of real "learning".

Yet I search for equanimity in all things and have found a modicum of it here with regard to the concept of "satisfaction". Read my response to Ginger's query below to see what I mean:

Ginger: boy this is a great topic for me. On the continuum of “satisfaction” for me is “wanting” which I can cleverly mask as “ambition”, “drive”, etc. I’m pretty good about not wanting things but just change that noun and I’m in the grip: I want to be a produced playwright, I want to have enough resources for retirement, (those first two are almost mutually exclusive), I want to help others, etc.

Fortunately for me I’m somewhat moderate; that I think more than anything else keeps the edge off my ambition (and my achievements too; strength=weakness, no?). I have come into a consciousness in the last ten years or so that when I feel dissatisfied about something I am actually in the process of “learning” a key lesson. It may require some time period (day, week, month, year(s)) for me to realize it but eventually this process yields an incredibly valuable understanding and peace.

But oh it is painful, that surfacing of self-knowledge. And I still reflexively apply outside solutions to what eventually becomes clear as a very inside problem. Yet I think for me it is this cycling friction: dissatisfaction -> examination of the dissatisfaction -> remedial action -> understanding/integration of dissatisfaction; that is my essential process in this go ‘round. I think my manna is really trying to be calm and conscious IN my dissatisfaction (my Dad always says I do everything the hard way).

Here’s another take on this; from the TEDxNashville conference that we put on in March:

Molly Secours talks about "The Upside of Cancer" – she shares insights gained while battling stage IV uterine cancer and the physical, emotional and spiritual transformation that occurred unexpectedly as a result. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o576Yy_u90o

Cycling away!

Valerie