Resentment: a feeling of persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, an insult, or an injury.
How many of us live resenting the very requirements of our day to day living? This question surfaces in my mind as I pick raspberries. For the longest couple of weeks, I kept checking and checking to see if they were ripe. Nope. Then, in less than a 24 hour time period they went from “nope” to bursting. So many, in fact, that I will not be able to get to them all this day. That’s OK. I am really here hoping to get just enough to make the very first raspberry jam of the season. And while I will be doing this between now and September, many, many more times, this first batch is always special to me.
As I am picking, I am feeling how grateful I am to have the time, the space and the inclination to be doing what I am doing in an unhurried way. And while I do have things to get to, beats to hit, right now I have an abundance of time to be here. This as opposed to hurriedly, maybe resentfully, cramming what I am doing in between other things. (Or worse yet, needing to assign this task to a reluctant teenager who might just poison the bounty with discontent and ill will.)
Along with the gratitude, I am also aware that if I were overly busy, this thing that I am doing which so matters to me, would be experienced as a resentment. I would be feeling as though this chore was some insult to my time; an overwhelm in my day. This awareness leads me to think about us as a culture and how often it is that we resent the very things that make up the fabric of our lives, all because we have set up our lives where we have too much going on. Because of this, things like self-care, home-cooking, taking care of another, doing whatever needs to be done, or what matters most, can only be experienced as one more thing to do in a too long list of things to do, all because we have made certain things more important than the basic and simple necessities of life and of living.
With enough space in our lives, chores lose their edge, caring for ourselves is juicy, and supporting another fills us. Our busyness, over-scheduling, and technological time-sucks leaves us resenting what we most need to do for ourselves and others. So, if you find yourself resenting the necessities of what keeps your life going, and what it is that makes for a good life, pause for a moment and ask yourself; If I had all the time in the world, how would I feel about what I am doing right now? And then, the hardest question of all to ask, and then, to answer; What would need to change in my life to make enough space and time for what needs doing?