How do you balance contentment with purpose?
Purpose gets you up in the morning, contentment keeps you in the moment.
Get into the groove with both and you’ll live the good life, no matter where you are.
Or what your day brings.
Tip:
you are here…
right here…
there is only now…
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember what you have now was what once you only hoped for.”
Epictetus.
Yesterday a terrific post by Sophie Wardell, about her grandparents, got me thinking about my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jimmy.
My mum’s mum died in childbirth so Mary, my papa Jonny McEachen’s sister, stepped in.
Jimmy Slavin became a dad and a widower in the same fashion. Mary met then married Jimmy and became mum to Liz.
Jimmy hailed from Letterkenny in Ireland and Mary from South Uist in the Scottish Highlands but both families, like many celts in the 20th century, ended up in Glasgow’s south side.
They worked in Gray Dunns biscuit factory, for the most part.
Jimmy would take me across the Clyde on the ferry for a penny when they lived in a tenement flat in Govan Road, then they snagged a council semi in Cardonald with a big garden and felt blessed.
Their early days were rough, Mary in service up north and Jimmy a crofter in Donegal living on “tatties and milk”.
My most vivid memory is dropping them off outside the Citizens Theatre in the Gorbals, Jimmy suited, Mary in a fur coat- a holdall, big handbag, flask and pieces, two hats and a tartan blanket- for the bus to Letterkenny.
I’d ask the two septuagenarians if there really was a bus to Ireland.
It seems there was.
This might seem like ancient history. It isn’t though, it’s barely even in the past.
I never heard Mary or Jimmy moan in their long lives, both lived into their 90s, or say a bad word about a single soul.
Here’s what took Mary & Jimmy’s bus to the terminus, though I don’t believe they thought about it too deeply:
~ whisky and lemonade, watching a western
~ a cup of tea and a Blue Riband wafer
~ a weekend at the caravan in Ardlui, on Loch Lomond
~ Arisaig, best place in the world (Google it)
~ Sunday lunch at mum’s with brother Angus
Are you mindful of the the simple, beautiful things that put you in a good place?
Russell Wardrop
CEO