Your concern is not so much to have what you love anymore, but to love what you have—right now. This is a monumental change from the first half of life, so much so that it is almost the litmus test of whether you are in the second half of life at all.

Your concern is not so much to have what you love anymore, but to love what you have—right now.

Only later in life can we perhaps join with Thomas Merton, who penned one of my favorite lines, "If I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted."7

If you don't know how to be happy with what you have, you will never be happy with more.

Gratitude asks, "Why me? Why do I get all that I have?" David modeled this kind of gratitude when he prayed, "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?"15 Years later, his son would write, "It is better to be satisfied with what you have than to be always wanting something else.

We accept our humanity intellectually, but not emotionally. When faced with our own limitations, we react with irritation, anger, and resentment. We want to be taller (or shorter), smarter, stronger, more talented, more beautiful, and wealthier. We want to have it all and do it all, and we become upset when it doesn't happen. Then when we notice that God gave others characteristics we don't have, we respond with envy, jealousy, and self-pity.

Envy asks, "Why them? Why do they get what I don't have?" Gratitude asks, "Why me? Why do I get all that I have?" David

it's easy to forget that the pursuit of happiness is not what life is about.

Solomon noted that envy is the reason why most people overwork!

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

Plain living and high thinking are no more:The homely beauty of the good old causeIs gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,And pure religion breathing household laws.

Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue what you want.