Dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to write today, what to talk to you about when I thought our house hunting and my own health. When you are after a house you have a tick list of all the things you want in a new place, and you can be very disappointed and that can even turn to despair. You have to hunt high and low and stick within your budget, not unless you want to live in an empty house with no furniture as the budget is bust.

Health is same, you remember when you had no aches and pains but now they seem to be there all the time. You are being mugged by your own body’s failings. Its 4 years since my own health first started to go on a pain quest. But I’ll not bore you about it today. My point in both cases is that you get dissatisfied, you play the Stones’ I can’t get no satisfaction all the time, even the postman hums it as he goes past your house.

Dissatisfaction is a dangerous thing because you bitch about what was ok before, before you opened your eyes to a wider world. We’ve seen 100s of houses online and in actual viewing now, so we know in seconds when we enter a house does it work for us. Then we look around our home and we feel, if only we lived there and not here.

Though structurally our house is better than 90% of those we have seen. Today’s house I actually missed as I was in the grip of pain, Arthur came and and squeezed me, so my wife went on her own. I had seen the place online and via Google maps, but when she came back we both agreed that was the target area we should be aiming for. So looking at our home turf it was not as good as where we really want to be. If only we won the lottery and could get a nice place in the target area, instead of a doer upper in a good area, but as we all know location is king.

So am I dissatisfied? Yes and no, I’d rather have an end to my 4 years of random pain, which sadly I know I’m stuck with, but God is good. One property we put an offer in 4 months ago and they turned us down, then they came back to us and we rose our bid. Then finally I told my wife to tell them that if they didn’t sell it in three months time we’d lower our bid to the original bid. Now its 4 months later and its still not sold,and they have lowered the price to just above our original offer. Maybe next month they’ll come back to us and accept our original lower offer, after trying to sell the property for 5 months. Who is dissatisfied now?

Having looked at nicer properties in nicer areas, they may come back to us and we might just say no thank you. Everything has its time, its season after all. As I mentioned yesterday one daughter has got her exam results, they were great, so we need to stay near her school so that her younger sister can finish her schooling there. Then the world is our oyster, property further out is nicer and cheaper. But we are not dissatisfied because Education trumps everything.

Now it’s late on Saturday night s I write this, as I talk to you, so some of you may be thinking about love,once the curry or the Chinese is finished,and your 17 pints of Stella Artois. The thing with love is that people want more and better love. The magazines down the hairdressers tell them that it is possible and the Daily Mail has features on it, so it must be true. Otherwise they are dissatisfied.

Your husband giving you an hour and 2, well 2 whatever is the polite word for it, well 2 whatevers and a full hour is no good. So wives and girlfriends are not satisfied. This leads to eruptions in the marriage or relationship. People are expecting too much, when really its the talking in the dark afterwards which is the most important bit. When you are older and tired due to the 17 kids you have, its the talking in the dark which is most important.

Moving on, when people never had holidays they were happy enough with an occasional trip to the sea side, now the whole world is not good enough, so the stupid rich want to go into space. Consumerism creates dissatisfaction so it can be filled with the next version of the exact same thing. People travel the world looking for new experiences and new adventures, then they return home dissatisfied. Fish out of water, they left home for Education but return home despising the very people they hoped to help if they visited the big wide world.

As an observer of life, back in 1974 my brother told me to join in an not be aloof, I watch things, I am a vacuum cleaner and I save and remember things. I’ve seen the curve of life, and the many stumbles and disasters in my own life. And what do I think about dissatisfaction? Keep it simple and keep it small,and you won’t have too many broken hearts and broken dreams. Humility in everything, as Donald Trump used to say, but on a Saturday night, aim for 1 full hour and 2 starbursts.