Our house is full of life as we have three teenage daughters and three dogs living cozily together. Two of the dogs are puppies filled with energy and enthusiasm while one is an old dog without much of either. Our scruffy old dog (his name is Zeddie) sleeps most of the day when he isn't following my wife around the house or yapping when the two pups get too close to him. He also has this annoying habit of continually trying to move his pillow and dog bed around. Zeddie will work gruntingly for several minutes trying to arrange things to his liking and end up in nearly the same place as when we began. I've watched him pull his bed with his front paws as he tries to move it into the perfect position before finally collapsing into it. I'm not sure if he just gave up because it was too frustrating or if he actually believed that his hard work had produced an outcome (which it clearly had not.)
This method of solving discontent can be frustrating and wasteful. How often do we exert great levels of energy to move things around only to discover our efforts haven't produced anything? How many times have we instituted personal changes before finding out we haven't really gone anywhere at all? Instead of wasting our energy and being frustrated at the lack of results perhaps we should pause to carefully assess the reason for our discontent. Then we can begin to decide where we can make small tweaks that will alleviate some of the pressure we are feeling. We might find that it only takes a few small adjustments to make things better. It's certainly a better approach than moving rapidly without any idea of direction.
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