Enough: Can We Ever Reach It? | Newsletter #48

Is a Life of Satisfaction even Possible?

Introduction

Everyone wants it.

Everyone spends every second looking for it.

But few (if any) find it.

Enough.

The final drops to fill the stream,

The final berry before hibernation,

The final piece to make the puzzle whole.

It’s the reason we do anything.

Sad is the man who spends his whole life on a hamster wheel to nowhere.

But aren’t we all?

Is enough possible?

Let’s find out.

But first, a small update.

Update

It’s been a few weeks since my last newsletter.

This was mostly an accident. Although, I think I needed the break.

Work has been very challenging the past few weeks.

Shifts feel very long and pointless.

But, we move forward.

Besides that, there are two major updates.

New Podcast Episode

You can listen on Spotify here or watch on YouTube here.

This time, I got the great opportunity to talk with Theo Luciano.

If you’ve heard about my possible job in North Carolina, Theo is why!

He works at RoleModel Software in NC as a software designer.

I had a great time talking with him, and I think there’s some good stuff for anyone.

Goal Tracking Software

Progress on my final project for Codecademy continues in leaps and bounds.

As you can see, I’ve made a lot of progress on the visuals.

However, my biggest accomplishments have been in the unseen.

One of the most important yet overlooked things in programming is making your program bulletproof.

Making something run is easy. But, making something always run is very tricky.

This process is called testing.

Instead of just writing your code, you need to go back and run tests on your code to make sure it always works how it’s intended.

This process is long and painstaking. Yet vital to any quality program.

Now that testing is done, I hope to have my project finished and published next week.

Shikibuton / Japanese Bed

As some of you may know, I’m a very natural person.

By that, I mean that I try to live my life as closely aligned to how Adam and Eve would have.

Such as, primarily eating food straight from the ground, spending plenty of time in the sun, and being barefoot as much as I can.

In this quest, I came to the question of sleep.

How might I make my sleep more natural?

Back pain and fatigue are just generally accepted reality in our modern day.

However, is this really how it’s supposed to be?

Long story short, I switched to sleeping on a Japanese-style bed.

It’s called a Shikibuton (literally means mattress).

It’s a 3-inch pad of 100% cotton that goes on a bamboo mat (called a tatami mat) directly on the floor.

The whole idea is to give your back the support of laying on the floor without the pain that goes along with it.

I’ve already seen tremendous benefits in just a few days of sleeping on one of these.

I’m hoping to extend this more natural Japanese lifestyle to other parts of my life too.

Including changing my desk to a floor-high table.

If you’re ever interested in checking one out for yourself, here’s the website I got mine. They’ve also got a ton of other cool Japanese housewares if you like that stuff too.

Thoughts

Enough is never enough.

Yet, some still have peace with what they have.

How?

There are two keys to satisfaction.

Focus and distraction.

Focus means reflecting on what you have—being grateful.

Distraction is about keeping your mind from constant want.

They may seem contradictory. But they must be used together to get true satisfaction.

Focused time devoted to counting your blessings is one of the best ways to produce satisfaction.

Most of us already have far more than we need.

What we lack is the eyes to see it.

However, this world is bent on keeping us focused not on what we have, but on what we don’t have.

Business can be a great tool in keeping your mind away from the lusts of the world.

Distraction from distractions is a powerful way to live.

With these two things in mind, think about how you can become more satisfied in life.

Find times in your day to quietly think about how blessed you truly are.

Find times in your day when you find your mind drawn to wants and fill them with good work instead.

This is how to truly have enough.

Oh yeah, you also need the Holy Spirit to do any of this with any lasting change.

Christ is your only way to true peace.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading this week’s post! I truly appreciate every one of you for taking time out of your day to read my ramblings.

Future posting schedule is a little up in the air at this point in time. But, I do not plan on ever stopping for good!

As always, I will write to you again soon.

God bless,

-Luke