Sandwiched between the white smoke over the Vatican and the Supreme court’s debate over marriage, the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg released a new book, Lean In. While I’m not interested in stirring the pot on the long-simmering debate between working mothers and mothers who stay at home, the above quote really resonated with me.
We live in an age of luxury. Choices abound, spilling around us in every area of our life. From the aisles of the grocery stores to the 63 page booklet that comes home promoting summer camps, we can’t walk ten feet without tripping over our options.
So why is contentment such an issue? Why do we waste so much time second-guessing our choices? Is it the ever-present mommy guilt? Our need to please everybody all of the time?
I think the plethora of options for how we spend our time and what we invest in often fuels our discontent. We want someone to tell us we’re making the right choice. Whether it’s stepping out of the workplace for a season or sending our kids to public school when “everyone else” is homeschooling, I think the little cloud of “what if” never hovers far away.
The fear of making the wrong choice often robs us of the joy of living in the moment.
So let me ask you this: what would you do, what choice would you make, if you were leaning in to your life, fully engaged and not governed by the fear of choosing incorrectly?
