A Prayer from Pascal on Contentment

I have been rebuked and helped recently by this prayer from Pascal.

 

Forgive us Oh Lord, for we do not rest satisfied with the present. 

We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight.  So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us… We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to make light from it to arrange the future… the past and present are our means; the future alone is our end.  So we never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.

-Pascal

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