Contentment

I have to admit, I've had this mental block when it comes to the word contentment.  I know it's a good thing.  Something we should all be working towards.  And yet something inside me rebels at the thought.
For a long time, when people talked about contentment, I got this mental picture of someone who wasn't going anywhere.  Someone with no ambition, with no drive, no real purpose in life.  Someone who wasn't interested in learning or growing or improving, someone who was content - and in my mind, stagnant.
The concept terrified me.  I heard that unless you were content and satisfied where you were, you would be unhappy everywhere else.  I didn't want that.  But neither did I want to be stagnant, going nowhere.
Finally, a different picture is beginning to be revealed to me.  What true contentment really is.  It's about gratefulness.  And patience.  Being satisfied where you are, while looking ahead to the future, constantly seeking what God has for you.
There are times and seasons for everything, and if one is constantly yearning for the next season, it's a sure way to miss the beauty and potential growth that are in this one.
I've struggled with this for years, and I feel like I'm finally getting it.  In many ways, I feel like I've wasted so many years already, wishing I was in another  season, wanting my circumstances to be different, instead of making the most of my time where I was.  But now that the truth is beginning to be clear to me, I don't want to waste the next several years with regret.
God has given each of us so much!  There is so much potential packed into every person, and yet how much of it is wasted because we're wishing we were somewhere else?