The Difference Between Being Happy and Being Content

I always settle. What I get is all I allow in. I've never thought of that as being a bad thing, as change has always been too looming to look directly in the eyes. Maybe settling isn't that bad. I've lived many years just fine with my 9 to 5 and my dinner calendar and my lights-out-at-eleven "policy". This is just how it is. This is just how I've lived. This is just how I've stayed slightly above the sinking floor.

The sun is shining, and the cars are moving, but am I? No. Is that bad? No. Is that good? Sometimes. Sometimes content is what we need. We need stable and unshaken. We need a good floor repairman.

But when that floor isn't so wobbly anymore, and I have a day off from work, and I decide maybe I'll do something different--that's when happy begins. Taking those extra steps up the stairs to a new level is happiness. Happiness isn't settling, it's fighting. Happiness is bettering yourself even when you don't want to because something might go wrong. It's a bliss that is as ephemeral as an un-scuffed floor. It's a new house smell. It's being at the top of a flight of stairs knowing you have the choice to walk back down to the ground floor when you need that 9 to 5 and that bedtime routine.