She Found a Diamond, But So Did We: Contentment

Choosing the Easy Road Versus Hard Work

A few months back our fifth wheel was parked at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. If you haven’t read what happened to us during our time there, you can find it here: Seeking Diamonds, Finding Dirt.

Besides being a beautiful wooded area, the real draw is it’s “the only place in the world where the public can search for natural diamonds in their original volcanic source… Visitors to the park search a 37-acre plowed field, the eroded surface of a volcanic crater, for a variety of rocks, minerals, and gemstones – any rock or mineral you find is yours to keep.” (https://www.arkansas.com/state-parks/explore/parks/crater-of-diamonds-state-park)

So today when Google told me a woman from Pennsylvania found a whopping 3.09 carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds, I had mixed feelings: excitement for her; some regret for us. Maybe we’d be better off today if we’d dug into the hard work of finding diamonds.

And that thought led me to reflect on other decisions we’ve made. Not just little ones, like walking away from an honest-to-goodness diamond field, but the bigger ones that have shaped our lives recently. What if we’d done things differently?

Hindsight, Regrets, and Contentment

Regrets. They’re sometimes hard to live with.

I should have…

I shouldn’t have…

If only…

Roger and I have our share of regrets. Some, like the diamonds we didn’t find, are easily dismissed. “Oh, well, if we had it to do all over again, we’d make the same decision not to dig.”

Others, like the time our RV was fatally damaged by contact with a concrete post, we didn’t see coming. Maybe we were overconfident after 15 months of full-time RVing or maybe we just forgot to watch out. Either way, we regret the rookie mistake that ended up totaling that RV.

We can’t read the future. If we could, we might have fewer regrets. But sometimes we get hints, like the time we saw black sand ahead and drove our rig into it anyway (We Got Stuck in Black Sand). And sometimes we don’t need to see the future; we already know better, like the time we sailed into heavy fog in Long Beach Harbor (The Sailing Story I Never Told My Parents).

The Opposite of Regret

I had to look it up: What’s the opposite of regret? Well, depending on the context, you could say it’s contentment and satisfaction. And contentment can be elusive, especially when everyone else’s greener grass is so obvious on social media.

One choice Roger and I made a couple of years ago that we’re still satisfied about is the RV we bought this time around. Like most of you, Roger and I do our due diligence—Google, YouTube, user reviews—before making a big purchase decision. Regarding a new RV, we kind of thought we were ahead of the game because we’d been full-time RVers before. Still, we figured it’d be a good idea to keep an open mind.

What about a Class C rig? Or maybe a big Class A motorhome with all the bells and whistles? But after looking at a few floorplans, Roger wasn’t happy about the lack of living space in a Class C. And the Class A we looked at was just too intimidating for me, particularly when it came to driving. Besides, both would require towing a “get-around” vehicle, which would mean maintaining two engines.

So after all the looking, we came to a conclusion. We wanted what we’d enjoyed in our first fifth wheel. Its floorplan suited us better than anything we’d seen, and we never got “foot-itis”* in it. So why not look at newer used models of the same fifth wheel? And maybe with a few upgrades like auto-hitch and auto-level? Oh, and better recliners.

The Decision We Haven’t Regretted

You can already guess the end of this story. The dealer saw us coming, for sure.

For more details about the new fifth wheel we bought in 2024, check out this post: Take Two: Hitting the Road with More Wisdom and Better Furniture.

Nearly two years later, I can honestly say we’re still content. Still gloating over that decision. Still smiling as we settle into our recliners at the end of the day. As they say, “It’s not the deal you got; it’s the deal you think you got.” Well, we still think we got a deal on our Grand Design Reflection 28rl.

(Side note: did you know the “rl” stands for “rear living”, meaning the living space is in the rear? If the model number includes “bh,” it means “bunkhouse;” “rk” means kitchen in the rear, and so on.)

So yes, we’re happy for the lady from Pennsylvania and her diamond windfall.

And we’re happy for us, too.

Because life is made up of wise and foolish decisions, some that work out well and others that provide tough lessons we’d rather not have to learn. Among all those miles of memories it’s easy to focus on the diamonds we didn’t find or missed opportunities. But contentment grows when we accept that our past decisions, good and bad, can contribute to our better selves in the future. Which feels a little like finding our own diamonds.

*Foot-itis: common syndrome of boat and RV owners, discernable in statements spoken longingly, such as, “If we had a boat just a foot longer, we’d be satisfied.”

Looking back, what “diamond” have you discovered in your life that wasn’t the one you were originally looking for?