Contentment vs complacency for empty nesters: honest answers for Lafayette

A lot of people in Lafayette describe their life the same way: "fine." Good routines, nothing on fire. But the one difference that changes everything about how you live — and that is the conversation nobody starts at dinner. Let's start it here.

And this is Lafayette: one of the San Francisco Bay Area area's most established communities — the kind of place where life looks handled from the outside, which is exactly why the gratitude-versus-settling question lands so quietly here. Which is exactly why this question lands differently here than anywhere else.

Where Lafayette makes it easy to coast

• The routine here works well enough that questioning it feels ungrateful.
• Everyone around you seems fine too, so your quiet restlessness feels like oversharing.
• Comfort in Lafayette is easy to keep and easy to notice too late.

Try this tonight (5 minutes)

• Write down one thing you're genuinely grateful for in Lafayette — then write one thing you've been calling 'gratitude' that is actually fear of trying.
• Set a 10-minute timer tomorrow morning and do one small thing your 'more' would do.

You don't have to blow up a good life to build a bigger one. You just have to stop calling the plateau 'peace.'

Ready to stop settling?

Get There Is a Fine Line Between Gratefulness and Complacency tonight for less than a dollar on Kindle, or grab the $14.99 paperback with Prime shipping — and join readers across West who are done coasting.

Kindle — $0.99 Paperback — $14.99

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Keep reading

• Contentment vs complacency for empty nesters — a guide for Palo Alto, CA readers
• Contentment vs complacency for empty nesters — a guide for Saratoga, CA readers
• Contentment vs complacency for empty nesters — a guide for Orinda, CA readers