Search for Satisfaction

The file was titled PhiliOmnomnom. Appropriate.

It seems I spend most of my waking moments searching for satisfaction. As though having another chalupa, moving into a new place, getting a new car... getting a cat (who is currently attacking the keyboard, be proud of my typing skills) will suddenly solve my problems.

The thing is, and I continue to discover this over and over again, those problems won't go away due to some worldly solution. Though it may seem like progress is made by moving out of a house with bad memories or finding a girlfriend to stave off loneliness, those solutions don't work at all in the long run. Sure, filling your tummy, taking a bath, or holding hands with some young lovely might feel good for a time, but all it does is take your MIND off the fact that you are still as stuck as you were before.

And what is more, worldly solutions do more than abet procrastination, they actually promote the idea that it's working. Take the girlfriend idea for example.

You've a nice little apartment and a good job, but something is missing. At night you feel a crushing loneliness because you have no one sweet to talk with, and so those hours are spent in silence. To deal with this, you spend either spend your time reading or glued to a screen as an escape from your plight. Eventually, that doesn't hold up, you put your mind to meeting someone for the purpose of filling that void and you find somebody you like.

In this instance, the time you spend with this person is great. Your mind and heart are engaged, and you feel a part of something. But what happens if that situation goes away? If you didn't change in the process of the relationship, then it acted only as a band-aid, a cover-up for the underlying problem.

I got a cat (who needs a girlfriend), and in many ways, she falls into the same category as the last example. I got her because of my empty apartment, and even though she's always there (rather obnoxiously, as she chews on my sleeves), I still have to do my best to hide from moments of silence.
Unfortunately, this means the problem is still there and still rooted in my heart, in spite of the things - food, movies, friends, my cat - I throw at it.

All these things are coping mechanisms, and they're not all bad. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having a cat (or a girlfriend, the two seem to be interchangeable), but how silly is it to rely on food or animals - or even a friend - to keep you happy? Everything fails, in time. My kitty scratches me. No matter how good your friendship is with someone, they're gonna let you down. Too many chalupas get you fat.

The ONLY way to be fulfilled is to accept that worldly things will never fill the God-shaped void in all of us. No matter how hard we try and how many things we stuff, the void will always empty the next day. The pursuit of Christ satisfies you, and yet leaves you hungry for more.