SATISFACTION AND CONTENTMENT I: 

THE KEY TO BEING HAPPY AND SAVING THE PLANET

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.   3-25

THE ISSUES

Until recently, almost all human beings have lived lives of scarcity and have longed to have their needs and wants better fulfilled.  We still must be careful of the environment and of each other to stay alive (viz., massive mudslides, muggers, fires, etc.), but for at least forty percent of us now on the planet, the satisfaction of survival needs (reliable food, water, clothing, housing) is relatively routine.  Given what we know or imagine about people a hundred years ago, this does not seem to have resulted, however, in a happier or more contented populace.  People continue to seek stimulation, status, and new and ever more powerful ways to feel better.  We wish to go higher, farther, or faster and to get more of everything.

We are wedded to our cell phones and say we can’t imagine life without them, but people before cell phones were just as happy and had other ways to do all the things a cell phone will do.  As wealth increases, we “naturally” buy bigger and fancier houses, even if we seldom use all of their rooms and facilities.  Are people happier in their large, fancier houses?  I think not—at least not after the thrill of ownership subsides.

We act as if more money will make us happier, but research indicates that for incomes above $50,000, increasing income does not result in greater happiness.  Many people seem stuck on the belief that no matter how much they have, more is better, and they cannot imagine that this is a false hope.

Beauty contests suggest that women who are more beautiful may have greater mate choice, but are they happier with their supposedly superior mates?  It doesn’t look as if they are.  Are a sizeable number of women of lesser appearance left without mates?  No, they are not.

Winning (an obsession in our culture) supposedly makes people happier, but are these winners really happier than the rest of us?  After the thrill of the win wears off, do they really feel better than the rest of us, or do they have to win again and again to keep their status or try to rekindle the thrill?  And, how do they feel after the win since their winning made someone else a loser?

Along the same lines, we now have drugs that may enhance our intellectual performance in taking tests, drugs that supposedly enhance our sexual performance, drugs to enhance sports performance, and a plethora of drugs that purport to make us feel better, and long before drugs, we had good old alcohol to help us out.  It appears that in general we have never been satisfied with how we felt and that we may never be satisfied with being just ourselves!

We assume that people choose what is good for them, but when so many choose pointless over-consumption, addictions, and competition that harms others, we must reconsider that assumption.  Now, however, more time and resources are available for “fun” and entertainment, which has led to our spending more time watching other people do things (movies, TV, concerts, “reality” shows) than doing them ourselves, more time doing imitation living (video games, internet relationships) rather than real life, more spending on equipment for having “fun” (mountain bikes, boats, special clothing for every sport and activity), more use of alcohol and drugs, and, probably, more sex outside of marriage (“idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”).   Addictions are more possible now, since more people have the time and resources to do what they want. 

We try constantly to rid ourselves of all pain and discomfort, forgetting that we need pain to signal that there is a problem with our being. (People who lose the sensation of pain stumble about injuring themselves in real life.)

Competition and trying to “keep up” creates stress.  We may try to “cope” with the stress of our competitive system with a fifteen second pause or thirty seconds of “meditation,” but these do not lead to satisfaction or contentment; we use them just to enable us to keep striving.

More and more of us measure personal worth by how many social media “friends” we have and how many “likes” we get, rather than seeking the much greater pleasures of “real” relationships.

In modern societies people increasingly focus their lives on quick satisfaction of unending wants and needs, but few people pursue or aspire to contentment.  Pleasure seems so available, through entertainment, drugs, consumer goods, and internet-based activities, that we believe that satisfaction is our right and is easy to achieve, so that something as old-fashioned as contentment seems quaint and uninteresting.  Instead of being satisfied or content, we seek constant but fleeting satisfactions through more and better consumption.

Human beings are built to notice all of their discomforts and discontents and to try to reduce them.  These are signals to ourselves that either there is danger or that life could be better if a discontent were erased.  Our bodies and our average level of insight, unfortunately do not always give us good answers for what to do about discontents.  The most adaptive responses take knowledge (some from experience and some input, accurate or not, from others).

Similarly, human beings are primed, through our potential for anger and our insistence on seeking fairness, to respond aggressively or even violently to what seems to be a threat.  It takes a certain amount of maturity to restrain oneself from aggression and violence when there are other responses that may be more productive.

Much of our society is built around competition (fighting for promotions, competing for college admission, our adversarial justice system), which sets us up to try to do better than others and be preferred (or special).  Often this competition tempts us to compete unfairly in our drive to win.  In our concern to win and best others, we are not motivated to do better at the activity itself (excellence for its own sake) but to simply do better than someone else.

To be more content with our lives as they are could (1) reduce our hunger for money, (2) make our competition more civilized and less antagonistic, (3) calm our frantic efforts to win, (4) reduce violence in our society, (5) help us to be more satisfied with ourselves, (6) enable us to be more loving toward ourselves and others, (7) reduce the amount of envy in ourselves, (8) reduce our stress levels, (9) enable us to do more about climate change (and therefore make life better for our descendants), and (10) decrease our destruction of the environment in our quest for more money and comfort.

The purpose of this essay is to bring to your attention the value and possibility of experiencing greater contentment in your life, by adjusting our expectations and standards based on our sense of what is important in life, by taking charge of “how much is enough?” for ourselves, and by coming to enjoy more meaningful pleasures.  A discussion of satisfaction and contentment is needed to balance our society’s growing focus on constant stimulation and pleasure.

DEFINITIONS

Satisfaction is felt when a need is sufficiently met or a desire sufficiently fulfilled (“sufficiently” according to our own standards and expectations) or when we judge that we have done what we needed to do to reach a goal (a small-step goal or a final goal), and we are pleased with our efforts and/or with the outcome.  We feel satisfied if we find and eat enough food that pleases us.  We are satisfied with our jobs when we have gotten a job in which our work results in reaching the goals we had for being in the job, in terms of pay, work activities, interactions with others, working environment, quality of management, or other goals. 

Satisfaction cannot be maintained continuously, since like all sensations and other brain states, it fades over time, and if we experience the same satisfaction multiple times it tends to fade through our natural accommodation to the familiar (the new car, the new house).

Satisfaction is also affected by the fact that there is a limit to how good one can feel.  We can feel joy or exhilaration, but only so much.  After that, even more stimulation (or another drink or “hit”) cannot make us feel any better.  This is a physical limit of our particular human bodies.

Note that feeling satisfied with bodily wants/needs is relatively automatic, while feeling satisfied regarding a voluntary activity (like one’s batting average) involves a judgment of our assessment of ourselves against some standard that we have for ourselves.  We can change those standards so that we feel satisfied with different things or with different levels of functioning.

Webster’s Ninth New World Dictionary defines “contentment” as the state of feeling or manifesting satisfaction with one’s possessions, status, or situation.  It is useful, though, to note that satisfaction is relatively short-lived and to label an ongoing, fairly continuous state of something like satisfaction as “contentment.”  One might be satisfied for an hour or two with one’s efforts at cooking a meal, but if one is aware daily of one’s fortunate state in life and is not striving for more, then that edges over into contentment. 

You may be content for the time being sitting in your favorite chair if you feel that all of your needs are satisfied and you have no pressing desires. If you feel a strong need to change your current status or situation, then you are not content, but you might still be content if your desire is at the level of “it would be nice but I’ll still be fine if it doesn’t change.”  Contentment, then, can be relatively enduring, as long as one’s desires are not at the level of “having” to be fulfilled.

Contentment is a positive emotional state that is based in feeling that we have enough or that we are sufficient, according to our own standards or expectations.  Since the contented person has enough (of material goods) or “is” enough (views self as acceptable, adequate, etc.), he has no pressing need to have more or to be more.  It is basically an emotional state of relative rest, in which there is no business that must be finished and no inner doubts or conflicts that must be resolved. 

Most people in our society have no direct experience with contentment or with anyone who is basically content and do not know what is needed in order to feel contentment!  Contentment has the following defining elements and necessary conditions:  a positive emotional state; equilibrium (a relatively steady state emotionally); feeling that what we have is “enough” (and not being totally ruled by our desires); relative lack of concern about personal shame, guilt, or inadequacy; and standards and expectations of self that have been met (or are being met) and are therefore not a source of discontent or dissatisfaction (we feel that we are “enough” to qualify to see ourselves and be seen by others as adequate and OK).  The degree of contentment of a person depends on the degree of presence of these conditions. 

While contentment may reduce our standard of living somewhat, it does not mean that “progress” will cease.  We may have perfectly good reasons for wanting ever better medical care (which costs more and more), and we will always be motivated to find ways to have less pain, but we do not have to have them in order to be happy, satisfied, content, or fulfilled.  If our basic needs are met reliably, then we can have “good” lives without more “progress.”  It is the false assumption that every wish or desire “should” be fulfilled that keeps us from considering the alternative of contentment.  In this, as in many other cases, our immediate emotions do not necessarily give us the best guidance for how to have the best life.

Many people would be happier and more content with a life that was more “real,” more self-expressive (creative), more self-aware, and more self-managed, but we no longer have societal structures that teach and represent the value of these ways of living.  Neither our schools nor our weakened churches teach good principles of getting along with others and getting along in society.  We are on our own as individuals to somehow find what is truly satisfying and fulfilling and pursue this path despite the enticements of our economic system. 

Happiness does not consist solely of gaining pleasures and feeling fleeting satisfactions.  It also comes from contentment (not being driven) and fulfillment (seeing the fruits of adaptive and beneficial uses of our skills and abilities).  Children (and many adults) imagine that Christmas is the happiest day of the year because of the gifts, but people who reach the point in life where they have met significant challenges and still made a good life (in terms of relationships and successfully meeting major responsibilities) and see the valuable gifts that they have given to others (raising children successfully, coaching their child’s soccer team),  establishing a food bank) are happier still. 

This essay urges you to consider that you may be more satisfied, contented, fulfilled, and at least as happy if you plan and manage your life by (1) adjusting your values to put greater value on contentment, (2) having deeper and more lasting relationships (which require more honesty, empathy, and face-to-face contact), (3) engaging in more creative self-expression–using your gifts and skills in relationships, work, and the arts, and (4) having the greater financial stability and security that comes with more saving and less spending.  (It is much more difficult to be contented if one is living pay check to pay check or struggling to stay ahead of the bill collectors!) 

MAJOR ATTITUDINAL ISSUES

Being more content requires that we seriously consider “how much is enough,” since maximum consumption leads us inevitably to more superficial and ultimately less fulfilling lives, and in recent years to taking more financial risks, which have resulted in greater losses (when financial bubbles burst and homes, jobs, and retirement plans are lost). 

Contentment does not necessitate a low standard of living but simply asks that we not be particularly concerned about it, beyond having “enough.”  People who are basically content can still see the necessity of working for their bread and shelter but can do this work with equanimity and without undue concern.  Society-wide contentment would imply somewhat less consumer spending overall and also less long-term ambition for status, so people who were content would not do extra striving in order to continue to “rise” in the socioeconomic hierarchy (even though they might still seek to fill positions that they considered important for the general welfare, in order to contribute).  People who were content would have no need to harm others by trying to best them or defeat them in order to “get ahead.”

We have little or no internal limits on seeking symbolic gratifications of our fundamental self-esteem and security needs, such as by gaining higher status or gaining more money), so it is difficult for us to recognize when we have “enough.”  No matter how big our military is, a bigger military could make us feel just a bit more secure.  No matter how much money we have, even if it is more than we could spend in a lifetime, more money would make us feel even better, momentarily.  This lack of limits was not a problem as long as we could not actually get or achieve more than we needed, and this has been the situation of most human beings throughout history.  Now, however, we can often get more and have more than we need and more than we can even use, so we become wasteful and over-stimulated.  (Consider the number of people who rent storage space because they have more stuff than they can accommodate in their homes.) We are tempted to believe that life is only about fulfilling desires, but this leads ultimately to disillusionment and burn-out.

Most human beings take what others around them have or are doing to be their standard for what is “enough,” without really considering the question for themselves.  To be content in a culture of consumption, you must decide for yourself how you want your life to be balanced between getting and consuming things and other aspects of life.  If you think about it, you will find that a good deal of what you have is not essential for having a good life.  Having five good friends might be just as satisfying as having ten.  You can have a happy life in a 1500 square foot house (or even a nine hundred square foot house!).  This is not a call to go back in time but rather a call to use more of our time and resources on things that matter.

Competition is generally a barrier to contentment, unless we can compete simply to enjoy the “fun” of competing.  A major site of competition is competing for status.  The desire to rise in status can be (1) the desire for more goods (a larger share of the pie) and/or (2) the desire to feel superior to more people.  Feeling superior to others is a way to prop up one’s self-esteem (though it really counts for nothing if those who supposedly inferior refuse to feel inferior).  If you try to feel superior to others, you will create resentment and anger in your fellow citizens. 

A person’s status position usually has nothing to do with who he/she is as a person or how valuable he/she is to others.   Often one’s status assignment is the result of relatively superficial criteria, such as wealth, beauty, skin color, or parentage.

Contentment is especially derailed by being dissatisfied with yourself.  Being dissatisfied with oneself is painful and can lead to endless efforts to compensate instead of fixing the actual problem.  This dissatisfaction is usually based on inappropriate expectations that parents or others have had for us when younger, and changing this dissatisfaction involves accepting oneself and coming to view oneself as OK and adequate (see  the Standards and Expectations chapter in my self-esteem book How To Feel Good About Yourself:  12 Key Steps to Positive Self-Esteem for steps in forgiving yourself.) ).

Being satisfied with oneself and having positive feelings toward oneself are crucial for contentment.  The key attitudes and behaviors necessary for having positive and healthy self-esteem go a long way toward having good mental health in general.

• thinking independently
• believing that you have fundamental worth and value just for being who you are
• believing that you are not inferior
• believing that you did not deserve bad treatment that you received
• believing that you have the right to exist and to be yourself
• respecting yourself at all times and treating yourself in a respectful manner
• accepting yourself (letting yourself be)
• loving yourself and treating yourself in a loving way
• altering your standards and expectations of yourself so that they are humane and reasonable and appropriate for you
• doing what is truly best for yourself
• treating yourself well
• ensuring that you are treated well by others

Could you have done more?  Could you have been a better person?  You might feel more accomplished if you became a brain surgeon or an astronaut, but would you actually be happier?  What is it in you (and your upbringing) that is telling you that you are not “enough” the way you are?   What is fundamentally important for human beings is dealing with one’s problems adequately, meeting one’s appropriate responsibilities to one’s loved ones and one’s community, and treating others decently.  To be doing these things is enough to be happy with yourself.

NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR ONGOING SATISFACTION/CONTENTMENT

A Positive Emotional State

Being content implies a positive emotional state—that one’s subjective experience of life overall is positive (and that life is therefore to some extent enjoyable and worthwhile).  If one’s overall subjective state were negative, one would be discontented with that negativity and would seek to make it overall positive.

Equilibrium

As noted above, contentment is an emotional state of rest, in which there is no business that must be finished and no inner doubts or conflicts that must be resolved.  There are no desires or motives strong enough to push us “off center” into an emotional state where dissatisfaction and striving dominate.  A person who is generally content can live, most of the time at least, in this balanced, centered state of emotional equilibrium, even though external concerns will arise from time to time that will have to be handled, hopefully in a manner that allows the restoration of one’s equilibrium.  This will usually require viewing external concerns and stresses as passing and tolerable, so that even though they may call for action, this action can be taken by choice and without significant stress.

In order to do this, you must have developed confidence in your ability to cope adequately with these threats.  This confidence goes hand in hand with the confident acceptance of the fact that, even if you cannot take care of a threat (and even if you should lose your life as a result), you will have done the best you can and will have done well according to your own internal standards and expectations (which is all any of us can ever do). 

Relative Lack of Concern About Personal Shame, Guilt, or Inadequacy

In order to be content, it is important not to have self-criticism or other inner discontents disturbing your equanimity.  The major feelings that must be managed are shame, guilt, poor self-esteem, and inadequacy. 

Regarding shame, you must grow emotionally and cognitively to the point where (1) you are little affected by others’ efforts to shame you, because you evaluate for yourself whether to be ashamed, rather than feeling shamed relatively automatically or simply because someone else is trying to shame you, and (2) you manage your behavior so that you do not do things that you will be ashamed of.

You must grow emotionally and cognitively to the point where (1) you manage your behavior in such a way that you do not do things that you will feel guilty about, and (2) you manage feelings of guilt by actively working through the process of forgiving yourself (which includes having the integrity to not act in that guilt-producing way again).  (See the chapter on acceptance in my book How To Feel Good About Yourself:  12 Key Steps to Positive Self-Esteem for steps in forgiving yourself.)

Feeling inadequate, feeling bad about being who you are, and feeling that you are not good enough are all aspects of negative self-esteem and will undermine contentment.  Positive self-esteem (feeling positively about yourself most of the time, without excessive inner conflict and self-criticism) makes your daily experience of living so much better.

Having Met Standards and Expectations of Self So That They Are Therefore Not a Source of Discontent or Dissatisfaction

Perhaps the greatest enemy of contentment (and of self-esteem as well) is holding standards and expectations for yourself that you are not meeting because they are impossible or because they are inappropriate standards or expectations for you (such as parents expecting a child of moderate intellectual capacity to be a high academic achiever).  The answer to this is to examine each of your expectations and standards for yourself and decide whether you really agree with them or disagree with them and do not wish to hold yourself to them any longer, given who you truly are and given who initially tried to hold you to this standard or expectation. 

As noted above, our motives and desires arise largely from our discontents.  You feel hungry, and you seek food.  You itch, so you scratch.  You feel inferior, so you seek higher status.  This fundamental process will continue as long as we are alive, but if we exert guidance and control over our responses to discontents and manage our desires wisely, we can be in a generally contented state.

DEALING WITH DESIRES

To moderate a desire, one can pause as often as needed and (1) reflect on the fact that what one has now may be sufficient for a good life (enough to permit or “justify” contentment), (2) “practice” contentment by imagining that one is content and allowing oneself to experience that feeling, (3) become clear on the meaning or symbolism of the desired object or person, since obtaining the excessively desired object is almost always an indirect way that one is actually trying to gain love, esteem, respect, or self-esteem that one lacks, and since knowing this, one can figure out better ways to get what is really wanted, (4) enter a contemplative or meditative state and enjoy its calm (and seek this calm throughout one’s day), and (5) think carefully about what is truly best for one, and focus one’s energies on following that path (which will almost always not include the object of excessive desire).  To deal with over-desire or unmanaged desire, we must use our cognitive abilities to seek healthier goals and place appropriate limits on our actions in the world.  Some of the questions that we might ask ourselves regarding our latest desire are—

• Why do I want this?
• Do I really need this?
• How exactly would this make my life better overall?
• What unrecognized need am I trying to fulfill by fulfilling this concrete desire?  Am I trying to make myself feel better about myself or more secure (or to fulfill some other emotional need)?  Do I really just need more love and support from others?
• Could I achieve my actual goal in some other way?
• In seeking this, am I using the world’s resources in ways that threaten my future or are unfair to others or to future generations?
• Is pursuing this goal consistent or inconsistent with what I view as my values?

Answering these questions honestly can provide us with the insight that having more can in some instances make us more unhappy, and it can help us to realize that we may be better off sometimes by not getting more.  This realization makes contentment more possible.

OTHER TOOLS TO INCREASE OUR SATISFACTION AND CONTENTMENT

Greater Self-Awareness

In general, the greatest tool that we have for moving toward contentment is greater self-awareness, which means being more aware of ourselves and our situations in total.  A great deal of our discontent stems from unconsidered assumptions, based either on our lack of full awareness or on our tendency to imitate what others think and do without really considering what we ourselves wish to think and do.  If you overeat because your food tastes so good, you can alter this behavior by taking more time between bites (and between servings) to focus on your taste experience and on your stomach’s degree of fullness.  (Try it; it works!)  

Being more aware of how we allow others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions to influence us allows us more opportunities to choose something different that will be better for us.  If your actions, for instance, are based on “keeping up with the neighbors” or avoiding embarrassment from being “different,” being aware of this allows you to question it and choose a different kind of life.  Why is it important to you to “keep up”?  Is it status, shame, fear, or poor self-esteem?

Reflecting on The Big Picture

Greater consciousness allows us to reflect on the totality of our lives and experience, rather than giving too much importance to daily issues or to one current desire.  Wanting a new dress for a social event might seem very important if that is all one can think about at the moment, but putting that dress and social event in the context of your whole life makes it smaller and may lead you to put less emphasis on it or to think of an action that could further your goals even better than the dress (or the social event, such as a trip to the city to nurture and develop a new and potentially valuable friendship or using the dress money toward learning a new skill.

Purposely thinking about the big picture gives us important perspective on things and allows us to assign value to various possible futures more appropriately.  One can also gain additional perspective by getting the input of others one trusts, or even by imagining that input from others, as in wondering “What would Jesus do?” or “What would my mom do?”

Seeing the big picture also gives us opportunity to see the inter-relatedness of things and to see more clearly how our own possible actions may affect others or the world in general.  Everything that we do affects others and the environment to some extent (the gases from your car and fireplace, the attitude toward others that you display when with them, etc.), so consider all of the effects of your actions (and how their future actions will affect you as well) before acting.

Doing What Is Truly Best For You

Human beings are built to do what they consider to be the best thing that they can do for themselves at all times.  The problem is that what they consider to be the best thing for themselves may not actually be the best thing.  Drug addicts decide that the best thing they can do right now is take the drug again, but most of us would agree that in terms of the total and eventual outcomes of such behavior, it is not the best thing for them.

Deciding on what is truly best for oneself involves pausing to consider seriously what is best, taking into account all of the consequences of various possible actions, including emotional outcomes, (especially) future outcomes, and the impact of your actions on others. 

Many times, the best thing for ourselves is to do nothing, to give preference to the needs of others, or not to take actions that we “feel like” taking. The key to doing this is to focus clearly on the two futures that one envisions, the one in which one takes the action, gets the reward, and then pays some price for it, and the one in which one takes a different action, avoids the negative consequences, and later feels better or gets larger rewards. 

Questioning How Much Is Enough

In deciding what is truly best for ourselves, we must answer for ourselves the conundrum of “how much is enough?”  Since we have no built-in limits on seeking gratification through symbolic activity (e.g., accumulating wealth to make up for poor self-image; viewing gifts as a true representation of love), we must use our awareness of ourselves and our informed predictions of outcomes to help us to set our own limits.  Comparing the overall outcomes for one’s life of having a bigger house and having a smaller house could lead to choosing the smaller house (lower house payment, less environmental impact).   Bigger and more are not always better.  We may be better off or happier sometimes by not getting more.  These realizations make contentment possible.  (See the goal-assessment questions above.)

Allowing Desires To Fade

A simple method of not taking action to fulfill a desire is inhibiting the action until the desire fades.  Emotions and desires both fade with time, so we can simply wait for them to fade (with the exception, of course, of those that arise when our lives are threatened).  (This is true of itches, too—just try it!  Simply don’t scratch and wait for the itch to go away.)  This shows us clearly that acting on most desires is not necessary but is actually optional, no matter how much urgency we feel or how much we want something at the time.

Be Happy With What You Have

In our short-term, immediate gratification society, we focus, as we think everyone else is, on the next acquisition or experience, and we can even feel empty and purposeless if we are not trying to acquire something further.  The fact is that most of our lives are OK just the way they are.  Think about it and wonder why you feel empty without another acquisition or paid-for experience.  The situations of most of us make contentment quite feasible.  More is not necessarily better, and contrary to the popular license plate slogan, the one with the most toys at the end does not automatically “win.”

Accept That Whatever Comes Is Enough

Reflecting on the philosophy that accepts whatever comes as being enough can cast light on our quest for contentment.  It is surprising to many of us, but some people with few resources exist relatively contentedly by accepting whatever comes.  People who are homeless or hobos and people who believe fervently in the grace of God, for example, find what they can get along in life, even on the fringes of society, and manage to survive and be content. 

SUMMARY

Being more content is entirely feasible for many people in our society.  Many of us could be happy enough with less material wealth than we now have, so being  ongoingly satisfied or contented hinges on whether we are willing to take control of our psychological side—to change our hopes for constant happiness and effortless living to expectations that are more consistent with our physical selves and our reality, and to be satisfied with who we are so that we do not continue to try to compensate for poor self-esteem with symbols of OKness (achievement, wealth, appearance, etc.).

In order to let go of artificial supports for our OKness (such as appearance, race, religious membership, and status) and in order to support a contented way of life, we must answer some crucial questions.  (1) Are you happy?  (2) Are you satisfied with your life?  (3)  How much is enough?  (4) What would it take for you to be content?  (5) Will you ever have enough to stop striving?  Can you imagine what it would be like to have “enough” and stop striving?

Being more conscious of ourselves and the realities of our lives would allow us not to be driven by unconsidered desires but to decide for ourselves what we really want and what would be consistent with our true values.  You can still have goals that you strive for and things that you want, but you need not be driven by these goals and desires

Being content allows us to seek what is most gratifying rather than seeking the temporary good feeling of acquisition and initial ownership. What is most gratifying for human beings are good and deep relationships, the use of one’s abilities in creative activity (that expresses oneself or that benefits the lives of others), and the fulfillment that comes from making a success of one’s life in these respects through deeper self-awareness and the good life decisions that that can bring.

Contentment is enhanced by—

• accepting yourself
• accepting your physical make-up and existential situation (i.e., that life will always be to some degree uncertain, will always contain some pain, and will always take effort)
• developing greater emotional equilibrium and therefore becoming more centered and serene
• developing the ability to accept yourself and your life even while you are seeking change
• redefining your standards so that you feel that what you have is “enough” and that who you are is “enough,” so that you can be truly OK with yourself.
• becoming better able to manage shame, guilt, inadequacy, and other negative feelings about yourself, so that you can accept yourself fully and view yourself as being OK
• being more conscious of everything about yourself and your life
• pausing to seriously consider what is truly best for yourself in the big picture of your total life
• practicing being happy about what you have
• consider accepting whatever you get as “enough”
• being confident in and satisfied with the results when you do your best and are truly yourself, regardless of the outcomes
• being better able not to simply do what everyone else is doing but to choose what is best for yourself

Any effort that you make to bring these attitudes into your life will make contentment more possible.

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