Never Satisfied
Make Things Better
August 9, 2023
(Rewritten January 20, 2026)
Ever since I was a child, I yearned to be satisfied.
I also heard many stories of famous and not so famous people who were not satisfied. It seemed like a human goal, irrespective of family (formerly called race), as in human family, not human race, ethnicity, gender or nationality.
It is universal. Yet, my take is different.
I am now uncertain if I ever want to be “satisfied.”
As I reflect on the gross and minor improvements in this world, most were informed either by dissatisfaction or accident (e.g., Louis Pasteur spilling bacteria on his petri dish, and thus, the discovery of the antibiotic, Penicillin). Or humans who were not satisfied with the land of their birth, migrating to the land we now call America. And all such immigrants (from Asia to Spain) call themselves “native Americans.” Yet they came from somewhere else.
They wanted more land, water, safety from predators (both two- and four-legged creatures), or better weather. I do not know what prompted their specific move, but I feel certain that it was dissatisfaction of some sort: safety, food, lack of clean water, climate…something.
Why did we move from carrying one large brick at a time to build the pyramids? I will go to my grave believing that an Egyptian slave invented the wheelbarrow because he was not satisfied and was exhausted from carrying one at a time.
I never believed that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Some slave, with painful, bloody fingers, was, clearly dissatisfied and invented a better way. Settlers replaced the wooden wagon wheels with an iron enforced wheel because they were dissatisfied with the breakdown as their wagons were pulled over rocks and holes in the land.
Horse-drawn carriages were replaced with automobiles because of dissatisfaction with the expense and toil of replacing horseshoes, saddles, bridles, and horses. No more need to pay blacksmiths, and ranchers for the care and feeding of the horses. Again, dissatisfaction.
The time to travel to “new” and distant lands from east to the west used to take months. That was not good enough. With the move from a single horse to a team of horses, to a train, to personal vehicle, dissatisfaction diminished. We have moved to buses and planes and still we are not satisfied.
We are looking to use jets and rockets. There was a time when we could use the Concord to travel from New York to London in 2 hours. It is no longer the case, but it will return and be even better.
This is a prediction with certainty.
So, do I now yearn to be satisfied? Or yearn for dissatisfaction?
Maybe.
What a great story and great examples! Pondering it brings to mind two things -- that both not only can go together, but emphatically should!
1. Always delighting in the perfect Lord who never changes, first and foremost.
2. Complete discipline and focus so as to win the race set before you.
Where the same Apostle who wrote "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." Also wrote "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."
And by having our satisfaction in the Lord, rather than in our circumstances or, we're free to do the special missions of the Lord, without constantly being paralyzed by fear. Rather, we are far more motivated knowing that the real reward is eternal.
For "everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." And every time we doubt something will be possible, we are reminded how we "can do all things through Christ who strengthens" us. Perhaps that is why most of the great inventors like Pasteur weren't just cultural Christians, but deeply devoted followers of the Lord, like Pascal, Newton, and countless others.
Phil 4:12, 1st Corinthians 9:24-25, Phil 4:13