The Power of Contentment

If you can’t be happy with what you have, how are you going to be happy with what you want?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, trying to wrap my mind around what it means.

This is one of the hardest lessons in life to learn, and one of the most important. Most of us, including me ( especially me?) haven’t got it right yet. We are grasping, seeking creatures, and are taught from the time we are young that happiness is “out there”. “Marry the right man.” “Get a good job.” ‘Go out on the town.” “Buy this car and the women will fall all over themselves for you.” “Play this game and you’ll have the time of your life.” “Buy this snack and your family will love you.”

Guess what? You were sold a bill of goods. Nothing out there can make you happy. Nothing. You want to know why? Because things change. You change. That beautiful girl you married changes. Women that are worth knowing really don’t care what kind of car you drive. Men who are worth knowing really aren’t as concerned with the smoothness of your skin as they are the love in your eyes. It’s been said before, and it will be said again - The only thing that doesn’t change is that we live in a world of change.

Oh, I’m sorry. There is one other thing that doesn’t change. Wherever you go, there you are. As you grow from infant to child to adult, no matter where you go, what you have, who you’re with, there you are. You are the constant in the equation of contentment. You find happiness by how you approach life, not by how life approaches you.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras says that contentment brings supreme happiness. Contentment is a far cry from placidly accepting things as they are. Look at Mahatma Gandhi. He practiced karma yoga his entire life. The essence of karma yoga is to live your life without attachment to results. Did the Mahatma placidly accept things as he found them? No, he didn’t. He lived a life of the most intense activity, and created a seachange in the politics of India and Great Britain. So contentment doesn’t mean passive acceptance. Stevenson’s “Glad did I live and gladly die” (Requiem) is much closer to the state sought.

The way to contentment is through detachment. Some people interpret detachment as a coldly intellectual approach to life, caring for no one and nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Watch your brother fade day by day, gasping for breath as fluids fill his lungs and you will feel pain. Watch your father as his casket is lowered into the ground and you will feel sorrow. Hold the hand of the women you love and you will feel pleasure. The point isn’t to not feel emotion, or passion, or pain, or love. The point is to feel them, but always know you are not them any more than you are the roller coaster that you rode at the theme park this summer.

So, do you think I’m on the track of something here, or talking out of my hat. What do you think?

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