Sand! Sand in the sheets, on the floor, in my ear, and clinging to my shoes. Every day I sweep the camper and wipe the shoes. I cover the bed with Tango’s quilts, hoping to contain the sand on the bed surface. I am supposed to have outdoor flip-flops and indoor flip-flops, but I forget to change them before I step in or out of the camper. Dang sand.

Wait a minute. I need to change my attitude. This is not annoying sand but the alternative to tramping in with snow-covered boots. Sand or snow? Snow or sand? I love the snow, but I admit that I prefer the sand. Besides, instead of shoveling snow with layers of clothes that make me look like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy, I am lounging under my awning in a leopard-print t-shirt nightie that I pretend is a beach cover-up.

Isn’t that how we are: never fully satisfied? Too much of this, too little of that. This annoyance, that irritant. This inconvenience, that nuisance. Which leads me to wonder, are any of us ever satisfied? Does anyone walk around with the bright eyes of contentment instead of a dull stare?

I don’t think anyone can sweep all the grains of dissatisfaction from our lives. I think it is part of human nature, although I cannot imagine what role it plays in our survival. As for me, one minute I am mumbling about sand in the camper, another minute I am joyfully walking on the beach. Sometimes I love my camper, other times I curse about how it’s just another cheaply made RV. Back and forth like that with everything. The alternative is actually frightening: who wants to be around someone who is always happy, someone who goes about like Pollyanna trying to find gladness everywhere and sprinkling it among lesser humans? Constant happiness seems phony. 

I was that way for much of my life. I wanted the whole world to be happy and satisfied. The problem is, none of us really want to be helped all that much. We are here, we will settle for a decent life and some creature comforts, period. This makes trying to help others through your work like beating your head against the wall (unless you are in the medical profession). Not that we enter into our work with the purest hearts; the flip side of altruism is surely some selfishness, self-righteousness, and maybe even a god complex. 

I learned my first lesson about what people really want when I was a young woman. Out of college I worked for a non-profit that helped moms and others in developing areas grow healthier food for their families. We promoted kitchen gardens and community gardens. While in Honduras, the young women were far more interested in my red tennis shoes than the seeds and knowledge that I brought. One of the women asked me directly if she could have my shoes. Normally I would have given them to her, but I couldn’t ignore the others. She left disappointed, and I questioned for the first time the things that make people happy and whether helping professions ever have an impact.

I never fully reconciled those questions or had much success impacting lives. Sure, I ministered well to some, but I never had any far-reaching impact, as I once hoped. Of course, that is the dream of young people to change the world. Old people know the truth: the world changes us. I also know that feeling mostly content is a fair outcome even if the floors get a little sandy in the process.