How to Find Contentment

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” Socrates

I suppose the second most asked question in life behind “Why am I here?” is “How do I find happiness?”. The pursuit of happiness is what we are all engaged in each and every day, even if we don’t think we are. Yet happiness blows hot and cold and is a very dependent and fickle creature. The blunt fact is that we can’t all be happy all of the time so any pursuit of happiness will always, ultimately, prove frustrating. What we should be asking ourselves instead is, “How do I find contentment?”; because unlike happiness, contentment is something that can last, something that can be enjoyed all of the time.

We should see contentment as the solid foundation upon which happiness can most easily express itself. Yet contented people are not dependent on happiness for their satisfaction: happiness will arise now and again, and when it does it can be savoured and cherished, but in moments of struggle and strife, when happiness if far away, the contented person can still cope perfectly well and still derive satisfaction from whatever it is they do.

Contentment is about gladly accepting the reality of ourselves and our lives, and using that reality as a springboard to explore the innumerable possibilities available to us, possibilities that we normally fail to see due to being blinded and beguiled by those deeply-ingrained habits of fantasizing and pointless wishing that so motivate and direct our lives.

The truly contented person, far from cutting themselves off from the high peaks of emotion and sensation that so attract most of us, is someone who finds true happiness and true fulfilment by finding what it is that is truly real. The truly contented person is like the moth who learns to fly away from the flame and in so doing, away from the dazzle and the glare, finds that the chains that bind it are of its own imagining. The truly contented person finds freedom.

The first step, therefore, is to ground ourselves and take a long hard look around. We can only see clearly when our emotional blinkers are removed so be sure that when you open your eyes you are calm, and prepared to see things as they are and not as you want them to be. This isn’t easy.

“True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.” G. K. Chesterton