When you’re in your 20’s, starting in your career, life, or marriage you have dreams.

Great dreams.

Dreams that get you out of bed in the morning and that excite you.

You have dreams that propel you to do difficult things, take crazy risks, bet the farm, take jobs that don’t pay well because they are exciting and fill you with passion.

But something happens along the way, and you look up one day and think, “I thought I’d be somewhere different right now.”

In marriage, this happens when you thought your marriage would feel differently than it does. Assuming you’d have kids by now, that your kids would be different than they are, that my spouse would be different than they are.

Our careers hit this place where we thought we would be making more, more fulfilled, more excited or at a different level in our company.

Pastors feel this when they look at your church, but it isn’t the church they imagined. The passion they once felt, the vision they once had isn’t there.

Carey Nieuwhof said, “Cynicism happens not because you don’t care but because you do.”

The places in our lives where we become cynical are deeply personal places to us — personal hopes and dreams that we carry for our present and future.

In this place, we have to battle for contentment and fight cynicism.

One of the things we miss when we think about contentment is that our contentment in life, marriage, parenting, and leadership is not just about us but all the people connected to us. Our spouse and kids are affected by our contentment or lack thereof.

If you are a pastor, leader or boss, those that follow you are impacted by the contentment or cynicism that you feel.

We can easily beat ourselves up because of contentment and cynicism ebb and flow in life.

But how do you fight for contentment, especially if you are not naturally a positive person?

Get around contented people. A thankful person is a joy to be around. Get around them, listen to them. They have peace that few other people have.

Learn what leads to cynicism. If you are a church planter or pastor, cynicism comes from hearing about a larger church or hearing about a church planter who was given a building out of the blue (that’s mine). If you are a parent, it might be hearing about another family or seeing something on Instagram. Know your triggers. Know when they might hit. Hint: it will often happen when you are tired or emotionally depleted. Just be aware of that.

Be grateful for what you have. One of the practices that have helped me this past year is writing down at least three things I am thankful for each day. This has caused me to pause in my day and see how things are going well, things I can celebrate.