Settled vs content

This week, I haven’t felt settled.

I woke up feeling grim…you know, that ‘first-cold-of-the season from the patient-zero, back-to-school-kid’ kind.

The diary had to change, plans shifted.

I even went off coffee, my stable companion.

Everything that normally gives structure and rhythm felt…unmoored.

And yet, in that unsettled space, a subtle distinction: it’s possible to not be settled but still be content. Not because things were going smoothly, but because life keeps moving anyway. Progress still happened, even if travel didn’t. No travel, no school, no football training meant more family time…albeit over inferior hot drinks and the aroma of Vicks Vaporub.

Settled is from Old English setlan, ‘to place, to seat, to fix in position.’

It’s external. The dust stops swirling. Things find their place. You’re stable, even if you’re restless inside. Settle down. Settle in.

Content is from Latin contentus, ‘contained, satisfied.’

It’s internal. The kind of calm you notice when the world doesn’t grind to a halt just because your plans do. Emails still land. Kids laugh through the coughing. Life carries on. Like those five minutes with your hands around a mug, earphones in, while it all swirls around you. Enough. Complete in the moment.

Perhaps content is the point, as life rarely hands us perfect stability. Plans change. Energy falters. We pick up bugs and problems to solve. And yet, even in that flux, contentment can be found.

Maybe it’s noticing the small comforts, creating warmth, the quiet moments that make everything feel…enough.

Settling is a position. Contentment is a feeling. Sometimes, it takes a week of disruption to notice the difference, and to find both in their own way. Strength isn’t always in holding it all together; it can be in knowing when to loosen the grip.

And it doesn’t mean not striving. It does mean finding and appreciating the pauses.

Good news, feeling better, and back to the good stuff.

Hello to my first oat-milk-one-pump-pumpkin-spice-latte of the season - a small but complex, delicious ritual of contentment!

Pumpkin 🎃 spice? Yes or no?