Felt Contentment
I have arrived at the insight that contentment, and the sense of being lucky and blessed on which it rests, is not only subjective (because your self-assessment weighs more than random opinion), but also a matter of discipline.
That is bad news for the young and the impatient. It is also an opportunity to evaluate what you have been given and to understand that changing moods colour your perception and that tunnel vision, as good as it is for meeting a goal, fails at being a correct indicator of what you could be at peace with and happy about.
To a first world person, it is easy to say that most of the world would give a lot to have his or her life, in other words, a life that is, relatively speaking, privileged and quite sheltered from extreme grief, poverty, overwork, social exclusion or unrest, and specific natural disasters. However, people in the richer nations aren’t feeling more content or more secure. The more I learn about it, the opposite seems to be “true”. Groups who own some power to change their lives are angry, because they are not on top of the power hierarchy and can not change others, especially not the groups they loathe the most.
I have long suspected that some addiction is at play here, and I am not willing to give up that hunch. Also, some people convince themselves that dissatisfaction alone will keep them motivated, then train that mindset until it becomes their way of being, even after they have a lot to show for. None of their good fortune or accomplishments matter, because they are not content, they can not be content, their pleasures have turned dull. All they ramble about is how a more powerful entity deprived them of their rights or authority or respect or a semblance of a good life and thereby, of self-approval.
So this is a serious issue, that it is commonplace to be frustrated, depressed, petty and angry, and that contentment is so elusive or dependent on some ideal state that probably no one can reach and certainly not sustain.
What is the way out: self-honesty and deliberate planning of the experience of contentment, because the feeling of contentment matters a lot and influences how you perceive where you are.
On this day, breathe in contentment, breathe out your thanks to all that you have in your life.
8 October 2017
#santosha #perspective #contentment #lovingwhatis #friendlyrelationships
#attitude #adjustment #harmony
