Contentment With Appreciation – Stuart Segall

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Lost a lot of people in 2024, didn’t we? Lots of folks are struggling with real and debilitating health issues. Health and loss, part of the ongoing struggles of our lives. How do we deal with them?

Writing to a German friend on his sixty-fourth birthday, ten years after his paralytic stroke, Walt Whitman reflects on what the limitations of living in a disabled body have taught him about the meaning of a full life:

“From today I enter upon my 64th year. The paralysis that first affected me nearly ten years ago, has since remain’d, with varying course — seems to have settled quietly down, and will probably continue. I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits are first-rate. I go around in public almost every day — now and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles — live largely in the open air — am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190) — keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions of the day. About two-thirds of the time I am quite comfortable. What mentality I ever had remains entirely unaffected; though physically I am a half-paralytic, and likely to be so, long as I live. But the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish’d — I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives — and of enemies, I really make no account.”

Walt Whitman’s reflections on his 64th birthday, ten years after his paralytic stroke, are truly inspiring. Despite his physical limitations, he found joy and contentment in life by adjusting his expectations and appreciating the simple pleasures.

Whitman emphasized the importance of lowering one’s wants and tastes, and finding happiness in the mere daylight and the skies. His ability to maintain a positive outlook and stay engaged with life, people, and progress is a testament to his resilience and wisdom.

Looking back on what most helped him return to life after the stroke, Whitman echoes Seneca’s wisdom on calibrating our expectations for contentment and writes:

“The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.”

Walt Whitman learned not only contentment but appreciation for what would have caused many to be bitter. Whitman’s story reminds us that even in the face of adversity, we can find meaning and fulfillment by focusing on what truly matters.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJ “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

I sure have my own struggle with health and losses and I sure don’t have this down pat, but it is something to aim for. So, I share this reminder to myself and invite you to consider this approach as we journey through another year.


Stuart Segall lives about an hour north of Seattle.  He has spent most of his adult life counseling, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting others.