Whats the one thing?

What’s the one thing that is keeping you from feeling happy, content or all right with the world?  I remember in my 20s I often thought if I had a little more money I could feel settled, happy, on center. But at some point I began to notice that when I had enough to get my car tuned up or buy an object I needed the feeling was still there. So I would go on to identify something else that was not right;​ I didn’t have a master’s degree so could really believe in myself as fully as I wanted. Or I didn’t have access to a strong dance community or……
Over time that one thing changed, got less tangible, and more unconscious. As I felt less able to change that one thing I also thought about it less consciously but it was there whispering in the background. I found myself believing if I could change this one thing in my primary relationship I could rest in love. If I could come forward as a parent in this certain area I could have confidence that I prepared my children for life’s challenges. If I could keep motivation to work on choreography regularly I could develop some good work. There was always a one thing; in my past it was more external, physical, but more recently it shows up as something in me that seems to be in the way of me fully enjoying the good life that I have. Over the years some of these things have changed, not always because I made a change, but someone or something outside of me changed. And when I stop and notice that the one thing changed, I would notice that the dissatisfaction was still there. Wow, that is a humbling and curious phenomenon. So I have to ask, can I be happy now? Or content or whatever the feeling is that I think I am being deprived of by that one thing? Maybe I will always find be a one thing that I can hang my unhappiness on.
If you thought when you got to the bottom of this read I would have an answer, a suggestion, a truth to share about what I have learned, I am sorry to say there is none. Only a curiosity about how we are able to fool ourselves into believing that if only this one thing was changed I could be happy.  As I write this I am on the deck in a lushly overgrown yard and a mama deer and two small fauns with fading spots walk up the driveway.  What is her one if only? Or is she only moving toward the apple tree, watching for predators, and smelling the air for water? The times that I too just notice my surroundings, try to breath in the full life of the moment the if onlys are no longer relevant and no longer press on my heart space.