“The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.” – Doug Larsen
Think about that quote for a moment and ask yourself if you are one of those people who overlook the opportunity to be content and instead throw it away for a chance to be spectacularly happy. First a confession: These last few months I have been down in the dumps, and while I’ve been moping around, I haven’t gotten too much done either. A quick google news search regarding happiness based headlines shows that I’m not alone in my harbored feelings of discontentment. A recent analysis of 4.6 billion tweets shows that happiness across the globe is trending downward. So why wasn’t I happy? I’m healthy, in the prime of my life – I have a beautiful wife and great friends!
What is Happiness?
I define happiness as that moment of elation after reaching a goal or accomplishing something. Few moments in our lives are actually spent being happy or in a state of unrestrained bliss. Happiness is based on qualifiers or on external things, such as getting a new job, having a baby, buying something, or receiving a title or accolade. IE “I’ll be happy when I get that promotion” or “I just need to lose a few pounds and then I’ll be happy.”
The Problem With Happiness:
Happiness is just a moment of elation, but not long term satisfaction. It’s human nature to desire to feel happy, however we ignore the lesser emotion of contentment. While peaks of elation are desirable and enjoyable, they can become addicting and distracting. It isn’t practical to believe that we can experience “spectacular happiness” all of the time. Therefore when we base our overall well-being and satisfaction on the pursuit of happiness we have to keep chasing after things that never really fill us with joy for more than a few moments or worse yet are unattainable or impractical. What’s more, the time it takes to gain the things that make us momentarily happy is much greater than the amount of time we get to enjoy the actual feeling of happiness. Buying a new car may take us years of effort to save and pay off, but actually driving it may make us happy for several months – until it eventually becomes routine.
Since happiness is based on wants and on external factors, it’s also completely out of our control. If we say that we will only be happy when we have a new job or find a new boyfriend or girlfriend, then we are waiting to feel satisfied until those qualifiers are met, and since we cannot always control when we find a new job or get a new boyfriend or girlfriend then we could be waiting forever.
Another thought, our society puts an emphasis on happiness and hardly ever talks about being content. We think of contentment as happiness, but happiness and contentment are really two separate emotions. I believe that this causes us to be confused and to feel lost when we fail to find lasting happiness, when we should have been creating lasting contentment.
What is Contentment?
Contentment is an internal feeling of satisfaction based on what one has already accomplished or owns. Contentment is knowing that what you have in life is enough and enjoying the satisfaction of having done what you have already accomplished or created. Since happiness is based on if/when certain things happen, once those things do happen, we tend to set additional qualifiers, such as I’ll be happy if I get that big promotion and then, I’ll be happy if I get a raise of x percent, or when I use my bigger salary to buy a nicer car – and then we say we’ll be happy when we pay off our car. It never ends. Contentment is lasting because it doesn’t come from external sources, but stems from within. Contentment is also much more attainable because it only takes a decision to have it and doesn’t require certain qualifiers to be met.
Happiness VS Contentment Which is Better?
The pursuit of happiness goes hand in hand with the human experience. People have always sought happiness and always will, and it is something worth pursuing, but it must be kept in balance. We cannot base our overall feelings of well-being on happiness as it is unpredictable and hard to find. We need to live our lives centered around contentment and being satisfied with the things we have and the things we have accomplished.
Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes said that he built houses and vineyards, acquired property that was rare even for a King to own – and made himself gardens and parks and had servants and singers and wives – yet he realized after many years of trying to find happiness in grander experiences that there was nothing better than to eat and drink and to see the good his hard work had produced, or to appreciate the things he had done and to take pleasure in the simple things like eating and drinking. He realized that eventually he would die, and that the things he worked so hard for would go to his heir, who may not be worthy of them – and so he said that all his hard work was vain, or “striving after the wind”.
So from here on out, I’m basing my well-being – my feelings of satisfaction, on the things I have done and the things I already have rather on than on creating new things. I will continue to pursue those moments of happiness but not base my overall feelings of happiness on achieving that spectacular moment of unrestrained bliss.
How To Find The Happiness / Contentment Balance:
If we find that we are dissatisfied with our present lot in life, we might take a few minutes to consider what we have done in our lives and what we do have and give those things priority in our overall feelings of satisfaction. When it comes down to what makes us happy, we should look at what we have given control over our happiness. What qualifiers have we set for our happiness? Are they practical? Are they really what we think they are?
As an example, the name of this website is I WILL ESCAPE, it’s a reference to my desire to be absolutely free. The realization creeps in on me from time to time that freedom is an illusion. No matter how free we become materially, we are never free of the law and of our obligations to society, our families, or our friends. We cannot and will not do whatever we please and we shouldn’t out of consideration to those around us – and as long as we are a part of societies, families, and friendships, we can never be truly free.
I have re-aligned my desire to be free with the appreciation of how free I already am. While I can’t just pick up and sail around the world or spend months backpacking through Europe, if I had the time and money to do either of these things, I likely wouldn’t because my wife would not want to and my family would miss me while I was gone, however, I am free from many things others are not.
After reflection on what the difference between happiness and contentment is, and evaluating what I base my happiness on, I’ve decided to realign my thinking process on what truly makes me feel satisfied and place an emphasis on contentment over happiness. Since coming to this conclusion I’ve felt more at ease and less stressed, but I realize that I may stray from feeling content from time to time and that it will be a struggle.
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