Let’s choose today to quench our thirst for the “good life” we think others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach, author

Do you ever find yourself coveting what others possess? I can go through seasons of coveting everything that belongs to someone else. I look around and see what others have and I want it. I want their stuff. I want their resources. I want their lifestyle. I want their flowers!

It seems to come and go in waves. Most of the time it comes when I’m milking cows in the heat and humidity, and someone shows up in their clean outfit with their perfect hair looking as fresh as a daisy while I’m sweaty, dirty, smell like a cow and my hair that I forgot to do that morning is now looking like a neglected Barbie doll’s.

I would love to blink my eyes and switch places so I could walk out of the barn, still smelling fresh, get into a clean car and drive off to a nice restaurant with no thoughts of feeding calves, washing pipelines or cleaning gutters.

Then there are those times when I covet other women’s kitchens: Yes, the dreaded kitchens that you walk into and they are beautiful. Decorated in the latest colors with the newest appliances with every gadget known to Martha Stewart, tucked in a Longaberger basket or hung from some fancy thing from the ceiling.

There isn’t a crumb, coffee stain or dead fly to be found; in fact, this woman has so much room in her kitchen she has framed pictures of her family sitting around on her countertop! Yes, the covet creeper sneaks in and grabs me by the throat until I remember that my mom didn’t get her new custom-made kitchen cabinets until all of us were through college and even then my sister had to marry a custom cabinet maker, to have them.
I find when I begin turning green that I have to stop and look around at my “good life” and acknowledge the good that is already in my life. That good life comes in the form of walking into my backyard on a sunny day and sitting down with some graham crackers and milk, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the sounds of the quiet outside.

My good life encompasses working at my desk and hearing the hysterical guinea hens sound off at the neighbors, or the bleating of the neighbor girl’s sheep when she walks out to feed her flock in the morning.

My good life looks like a skunk scampering across the yard before dawn, when I walk across the road to milk the cows, or the warm smile of a son who thanks me for taking him swimming on a hot day.

Even without new four-door trucks, custom-built cabinets, front-load washers, Longaberger baskets, without every new kitchen gadget, chore-free evenings, a weed-free garden and hoses that don’t leak, my life is still good.

I am living the good life.

Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.