SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Contentment: Why You Need It, How You Get It
It’s all in your head
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Believe it or not, you can rid yourself of the discontent that comes from wanting more of things you don’t have. The secret is to choose a few good things to pay attention to, then spend a few moments to savor these things. The result is contentment, an emotion that reminds you that you already have enough.
I’ll tell you exactly how to do this, but first I have a few things to cover.
What does contentment look like?
In the moment when you feel content, you are satisfied with what you have; you don’t need more and you don’t need anything else. It doesn’t matter that you have to wash the dinner dishes later, that you have to write a report once the sun goes down, that you’re going home to an empty apartment. None of these can take away this moment of contentment.
The truth is, you have many moments of contentment — and they pass you by, unrecognized. Your attention is hijacked by the roiling jumble of thoughts and emotions that overwhelm your brain. You have all you need to be content, but you don’t feel it — and so these moments don’t make your day better.
Does contentment even matter?
Contentment is fleeting. It lasts for just a moment. Compared to all the problems and obligations in your life, it doesn’t stand a chance.
Or does it?
Many spiritual traditions say it matters — a lot.
- The Christian Bible says that contentment is supremely important, even if your life is hard: “All the days of a poor person are wretched, but contentment is a feast without end.”
- The Buddha once said, “Health is the most precious gain and contentment, the greatest wealth.”
- The Jewish “Oral Torah” says, “Ben Zoma said: Who is rich? Those who are happy with their portion.”
- Yoga teachings, which draw from Hinduism and Buddhism, say, “As a result of contentment, one gains supreme happiness.”
Moments of contentment are small, but learning to value them will change your life.
The importance of naming
Here’s a story about how naming is important.
For most of my life, I was blind to my strengths, and so my life never got any better. Life was throwing me one crisis after another. I was barely surviving each one, but each new crisis was as bad as the previous one.
For those many years, I had the tools I needed to improve my life, but I didn’t know it.
I was working as a magazine editor, and periodically having to be in charge of an issue’s main topic was a real struggle for me.
I also found it very difficult — even painful — to travel across the country by myself to do business with another company.
The truth was that I was successful in doing difficult things, and I could have improved my life by telling myself, “Look, you’ve done this thing before, so don’t worry about not being able to do it again.”
In other words, I never gave myself credit for being a capable person. I never told myself, “I know I am capable of doing this. I can let go of the anxiety that plagued me and concentrate on meeting future goals in a healthy way.”
This brings me to a very important point: to act on a strength you have, you must bring it into consciousness by naming it and paying attention to it in your daily life. If you can’t say “I am…”, then you aren’t.
The story above is about improving my life by naming my ability: “I am a capable person, and I can handle difficult situations.” Note that it is not about contentment, which is the subject of this article. But I had to include it to explain why naming a quality (in the above example, competence) is absolutely essential to being able to use it in your life.
The same is true for contentment. For it to make you happier, you have to pay attention to it and name it…and you must add one more ingredient.
How to experience contentment
A Buddhist teaching says that contentment is always available to you — and it is. In this moment, you have all you need to be content. Think of the things around you, right now, that are good: a satisfying cup of coffee, a small moment of rest, the smile of a friend, a memory of something good that happened to you recently.
Good things are around you all the time, but you don’t experience contentment because they get lost in the flood of thoughts and emotions of everyday life. To experience contentment, you must act on these good things in three ways.
1. Start by paying attention
First, you must choose two or three good things, then you must pay attention to each of them. What is its shape or color or taste? Which of your senses does it activate? How does it make your body feel? When you pay attention to something, you’re focusing on it — that is, you are bringing it into the foreground of your mind, and this causes everything else to fade into the background.
2. Savor what you’re paying attention to
Second, you must savor what you are paying attention to. As one dictionary describes it, you must “give yourself to the enjoyment of” whatever you’re paying attention to.
Savoring is having an emotion about something you’re paying attention to— for example, I am paying attention to this cup of coffee (ignoring all the competing things that are hovering nearby). Savoring a cup of coffee means enjoying the warmth of the cup, the aroma and taste of the coffee, the comfortable ambience of the cafe, and the memory of good conversations you’ve had with friends.
3. Gain the benefit by naming what you’re enjoying
Third, savoring involves invoking positive emotions, body sensations, and mental states. Gather these things into your heart, be thankful, and name what you’re experiencing. Tell yourself, “I am enjoying the things around me. I don’t need anything else in this moment. I am content.” Linger on this contentment for a few moments. When you reenter your normal life, you’ll feel like you’ve taken a small vacation.
An example
Right now, I am writing at the computer. I have a frosty glass of Diet Coke near me. The room is quiet. These are the things I am paying attention to.
I close my eyes and contemplate what I am paying attention to. I am pleased about finishing my article, and I anticipate publishing it where people can read it. The Diet Coke is a small pleasure that I enjoy. I am thankful for having quiet room to work in. I take a moment to linger on how I feel about each of these thing. I tell myself, “I feel good because of these things. I need nothing else in this moment. I feel content.”
I savor this moment, then return to the tasks of the day.
Now I feel peaceful and unhurried. I am thinking clearly. Things are in perspective now. I tell myself, “I am content,” and I know I can reach for contentment again because I now have a word for what I feel.
How contentment becomes a way of life
Being content in the moment is brief, and that’s okay. But it still changes your mood and how you see the day (for example, it may distance you from the drama going on around you).
Here’s what happens when you continue making more moments of contentment:
- You’ll find it easier to do, and you’ll get more benefit from it
- You’ll spontaneously notice good things, and you’ll make moments of contentment out of them
- Your mood will improve and you will make better decisions
- Your life will change for the better. You will turn toward contentment and turn away from craving what you don’t have.
Contentment comes from noticing a few good things, moving from thoughts to emotions by savoring them, and naming what you’re feeling as contentment.
Practice this, and you will gain “a feast without end” in your life.
Thanks to Steve H., whose feedback made this a better article.
