The Nutritional Content of Contentment

Okay, I realize that I’ve been living under a rock the last couple years and this 10in10diet blog is probably so famous that everybody else already knows about. But I just found it and I’m impressed. Two ideas keep presenting themselves to me lately, and eventually I’ll have to act on them.


1. Vegetarians should eat beans.

2. Fake meat is only better than eating dead animals on one out of the three main reasons that people avoid meat. (That is, it’s not a dead animal. It is still devastating to the environment, and highly processed, therefore of questionable nutritional value at best.)

When I first read it, I thought, “Damn, why didn’t I see this when I was still at home and could have tried some of these ideas?” Then I realized I was falling into the greener grass trap again. When I was home, I never even had the time to stumble onto cool blogs that supported my values, let alone try to incorporate their lessons into my actual life.

This post about contentment struck me as very wise, and also gave me some insight into why I was never able to be the kind of radical homemaker I envisioned myself before actually trying a stint as a homemaker (and even now, when it’s too late, imagine that I might be if I had another chance).

From 10in10:

“ If we observe our minds when cravings and compulsions to shop arise,... We can regard it the way we see a cranky toddler. It will pass and there can be real satisfaction in realizing that the 'need' wasn't real….”

So there it is. I never could, and still can’t, see my cranky toddler as something that will pass. I can’t, in the moment, see that her tantrum is not a real crisis, any more than she can. I even have a hard time remembering that tantrums in general pass. Her sister has outgrown them and soon she will too, regardless of how I react right now. Without that sense of the fleeting, temporary nature of my problems, I cannot generate enough emotional distance to respond appropriately. And so I get sucked in and have to keep responding. How can I learn how to make cabbage soup when my toddler ‘needs’ to put her shoes on RIGHT NOW?

So, as tempting as it is to think, “If only I had learned how to cook beans, we wouldn’t have been so broke and I wouldn’t have had to go back to work and I could be at the Children’s Museum with my daughter RIGHT NOW…” I have to step back and observe my mind running in its old hamster wheel. It is so much more productive to accept the life I have and see how I can incorporate these good ideas without wanting them in a different context.

Maybe the next time I’m home alone with Snow White on a ski school day, I’ll try to make beans or soup or yogurt. If it works, hooray! I’ve done learned how to do something healthy and homey and hippie and can be proud. And if, as is more likely, I make a big mess in the kitchen and we end up at the pub for our usual après ski dinner, well, I’ve learned something then too.