A Lesson in Contentment

So, as you may or may not know, last Saturday was national "no driving day", or something like that. I don't know about you, but I certainly didn't do all I could to avoid burning fossil fuels. In fact, I drove all the way downtown two times in one day. In my own defence, I wasn't aware that it was "no driving day," but I confess that even if I had, it probably wouldn't have made any difference.
Anyways, that isn't really what this post is supposed to be about. Or at least not directly. One of the trips that I took downtown on Saturday was in order to take a walk with my parents. We started at the Forks and then walked down some residential streets. On Albert street there is a coffee shop called "the fyxx" and so we decided to stop for coffee. First of all, this coffee shop is pretty cool. It has local art hanging on the walls, and you can look out over the street below from the front window. I am sure that on a typical day at the fyxx, you can see people walking around doing their daily business, but this was not a typical day. This was national "no driving day," and the people on Albert street were celebrating. The street was blocked off to traffic, and there was a street hockey game going on. There were many different types of people doing many different types of things, and me and my parents sat and were entertained by the diversity and quirkiness that we witnessed. We saw lots of things that you don't see every day: a man playing the accordion, a young guy riding a double decker bicycle, a woman openly breast feeding, 4 university students crammed into a small couch watching the game, a 4 year old kid playing street hockey with a 70 year old and a bunch of 20-somethings, a wedding party of elegantly dressed bridesmaids and groomsmen posing for pictures in the net, and then joining in the game for a while. Needless to say, it was entertainment at its finest.
The thing that struck me though, as I was sitting there drinking my coffee, wasn't the wedding or the accordion or the hockey game. I mean, those things did interest me, but they weren't what really sunk in. In the midst of all of this strangeness, I got a sense of contentment that was present in the people hanging out on the street. They were doing something that to me seemed very out of the ordinary, something that if I pictured myself to be a part of, I think I would be uncomfortable and self-conscious. But as I looked from one person to another, I didn't see people looking around self-consciously. I didn't see anyone sitting around with a concerned look on their face. I saw a lot of very different people who were perfectly happy being exactly where they were at that moment. I looked from one face to the next, and everyone looked perfectly at peace. The whole situation seemed to me to be yelling, "Who cares if my school work needs to be done and my family life isn't the best and I have to find a way to pay the rent? This moment is perfect, and I am going to soak it for all it's worth."
This sense of peace and living in the moment is something that doesn't come naturally to me. But I'm not really sure if it comes naturally to anyone. The truth is, there will always be things that I could worry about if I let myself, and so I can't wait for the problems to go away for an experience of contentment. Contentment is a choice to live in the moment. It is a conscious leaving behind of all the garbage that so easily weighs on my mind. And it is so much easier said than done. But even if I wasn't practicing contentment a moment ago, the choice is still there in front of me. Each moment is a new chance to choose to be content, and so no matter how badly I have done this in the past, the future is still an open book. I hope that I will continue to learn how to choose this in each and every moment that is given to me. Maybe I should hang out on Albert street a little more often.