Contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease
in one's situation, body and mind. Colloquially speaking, contentment
could be a state of having accepted one's situation and is a milder and
more tentative form of happiness.
Contentment and the pursuit of contentment are possibly a central
thread through many philosophical or religious schools across diverse
cultures, times and geographies. Siddharta might have said "Health is the most precious gain and contentment the greatest wealth". John Stuart Mill,
centuries later, would write "I have learned to seek my happiness by
limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them." Marcus Aurelius
wrote "Live with the gods. And he who does so constantly shows them
that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to them." Hebrews 13:5
reads "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with
what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will
I forsake you.'" Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou
once wrote in the 3rd century BCE (hypothetically) "A gentleman who
profoundly penetrates all things and is in harmony with their
transformations will be contented with whatever time may bring. He
follows the course of nature in whatever situation he may be."
The literature seems to generally agree that contentment is maybe
a state ideally reached through being happy with what a person has, as
opposed to achieving one's larger ambitions, as Socrates
described by probably saying "He who is not contented with what he has,
would not be contented with what he would like to have." That said,
there may be a number of elements of achievement that may make finding a
state of personal contentment easier: a strong family unit, a strong
local community, and satisfaction of life's basic needs as perhaps
expressed in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In general, the more needs in Maslow's hierarchy are achieved, the more easily one might achieve contentment.
General
Many religions have some form of eternal bliss or heaven as their apparent goal, often contrasted with eternal
torment or dissatisfaction. The source of all dissatisfaction appears
to stem from the ability to compare experiences and then infer that
one's state is not ideal.
In the Bible, there is an intriguing allegorical account that man's fall from his paradisal state was caused by man eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man's eyes were "opened" to know the distinction between good and evil (Genesis 3).
In other words, when man becomes intellectually developed to
distinguish between good and bad, he realizes that is a gap between what
he considers good or ideal and what he is experiencing. The perception
of this disparity is what creates psychological and physiological
tension.
In the Tao Te Ching,
this development of man from his primal state of consciousness called
Tao is similarly expounded in this manner: "When the Tao is lost, there
is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality ...". Morality
as we know is the intellectual discernment between good and evil. There
is therefore a belief that one can achieve contentment by living "in
the moment,"
which represents a way to stop the judgmental process of discriminating
between good and bad. However, attempting to live in the moment is
difficult because a person's attention is not only distracted by sensory
stimuli but also psychological processes that conspire to make them
think subconsciously or consciously. This thinking process is always
involved with memories; hence, the attempt to stay in the present is a
ponderous one given that there is always this subconscious struggle to
break away from memories, especially unhappy ones. For this reason,
specializations in this pursuit to live in the moment are found in
various religious and mystical schools, manifested in forms of meditation and prayer.
A more practical way for most people would be to simply practice
contentment as an attitude. Practicing gratitude is perhaps a way to
understand what contentment as an attitude is about. Seen in this light,
contentment is not an achievement but an attitude that one can adopt at
any time.
The American philosopher Robert Bruce Raup wrote a book Complacency: The Foundation of Human Behavior (1925) in which he claimed that the human need for complacency (i.e. inner tranquility) was the hidden spring of human behavior. Raup made this the basis of his pedagogical
theory, which he later used in his severe criticisms of the American
education system of the 1930s. However, in the context of present-day
society, perhaps the multidimensional leisure culture evinces in a very
significant way the desire of man to return to his core state of
contentment by letting go of his hectic outer activities.
Contentment and positive psychology
In many ways, contentment can be closely associated with the concept of happiness and satisfaction. In positive psychology, social scientists
study what might contribute to living a good life, or what would lead
to people having increased positive mood and overall satisfaction with
their life.
Happiness, in positive psychology, is defined in a twofold manner, which in totality is referred to as subjective well-being. How much positive emotion (positive affect) as opposed to negative emotion (negative affect)
does a person have, and how ones view one's life overall (global
satisfaction) are the questions asked in positive psychology to
determine happiness. Contentment may be more associated or closely
related to a person's level of satisfaction with his/her life (global
satisfaction), but the idea of contentment is certainly intertwined in
the concept of what makes people happy.
In the 2014 book Lucky Go Happy : Make Happiness Happen!, Paul van der Merwe uses a chart to illustrate how being content for long periods of time, can yield more happiness than being ecstatic during a short period.
Positive psychology finds it very important to study what
contributes to people being happy and to people flourishing, and finds
it just as important to focus on the constructive ways in which people
function and adapt, as opposed to the general field of psychology which
focuses more on what goes wrong or is pathological with human beings.
Variables that contribute to happiness in research
Satisficer vs. maximizer
These are two concepts that define the ways in which people make choices. A satisficer
is a person who will make a decision once his/her criteria is met, and a
maximizer, on the other hand, won't make a decision until every
possible option is explored.
Genes
There is evidence suggesting that there is a relationship between contentment and genes.
Personality
Through factor analysis, personality can be narrowed down according to the five factor model, which holds that there are five aspects of heritable personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Research has shown that personality is 50% heritable, but not always.
There are two aspects of personality which are related to happiness.
There is a strong relationship between extraversion and happiness, in
that the more extraverted a person is (or behaves) the more happy he/she
will be. The other aspect of personality which has a strong
relationship to happiness is the genetic predisposition to neuroticism.
The more neurotic (emotionally unstable) a person is, the more likely
he/she is to be unhappy.
Goal pursuits
Reaching goals that are important to oneself and that are in alignment with one's personality can contribute to feelings of confidence
and mastery. It is important to establish goals that are neither too
easy or too hard, but that are optimally challenging. It is also
important to note that investing energy in avoiding goals will
contribute to diminishing happiness as well as deter one from reaching
one's goals, which can be quite intuitive to understand.
Money
Many people
strongly associate money with happiness, and they believe that being
rich will contribute greatly to making them happier, and the American
society reflects this growing materialism.
Although wealth is associated with some positive outcomes, i.e. lighter
prison sentences for the same crime, better health, and lower infant mortality,
and can act as a buffer in certain instances, as mentioned previously,
the overall relationship between money and happiness is marginal.
However, beyond a low threshold where the basic needs are met,
money has a very small impact on happiness. There is also the concept
of the diminishing marginal utility of income (DMUI), which is that
money has no effect on happiness once a certain income level has been
reached, and which represents wealth and happiness as having a
curvilinear relationship.
Indeed, when one has met his basic needs and have more to spare,
it is time to spend or give some to experience happiness. This is
because happiness is really a state of in-and-out flow
of one's energy. Using or giving money is an expression of out-flowing
of one's life-state. Attempt to just hoard more and more in the belief
that it brings more happiness can lead to the opposite result if only
because the means – that is the pursuit of money for happiness – has
unwittingly become the ends.
Leisure (also Leisure satisfaction)
The concept of work-life balance
is now well-accepted. At the same time, it must be noted that the
'life' aspect of this 'work-life' concept includes activities devoted to
one's personal life which sometimes calls for the kind of commitment
and effort no less than that demanded from one's work-life.
In some societies, this 'life' aspect might include looking after
the elderly and infirm, sending children to and from schools, preparing
the meals, cleaning the house and doing the laundry. They are as much
work as the work life, and in the midst of all these, the need for leisure activities is simply an alien concept.
Leisure as a culture is not a universal societal value although
the younger generation in developed or near-developed societies seems
more inclined toward it. Overseas trips, lounging in a cafe with
friends, attending concerts, relaxing in a spa, karaoke-ing and similar
activities after office hours are now prevalent among that generation.
In fact, over the last 15 years, the market has seen a tremendous surge
in demand for such leisure services. In his book "In the Era of Human
Capital", Richard Crawford charted the exponential growth of the Business & Leisure sector in the post-industrial society.
This trend might look like an offshoot of a more affluent society;
however, the need for leisure is intrinsic in humans and only through
the demands of modern economic life – run as it were by the clock,
timetables, deadlines and schedules – did this need fade into the
background.
Humans' need for leisure is intrinsic because that is the state
they were born with, or rather, that is the state of life in the natural
world. Leisure implies that one is not pressured by others or oneself
to deliver a certain result but that life is lived to enjoy the simple
pleasures of exploring the world that one is born into.
This happy state of life is that generally experienced by the
pre-school child and is gradually lost when duties and responsibilities
of school life and subsequently the adult work-life enter into the
picture.
Not all societies have embraced the leisure culture whether
through certain public policies like having a universal welfare system,
and psychological and financial preparedness on the part of individuals
for retirement wherein leisure is the salient feature. This even
applies to developed nations. For example, the US has a "retirement
crisis" in which a large percentage of Americans do not have sufficient
savings for retirement.
Economic productivity being often if not always equated with
work, the culture of leisure is seldom recognized as a major contributor
to a growing business sector. For this reason, many societies do not
have in place an infrastructure that strongly supports the leisure
culture – such as represented by a universal social welfare system,
a wealth of products, services and amenities for retirees. Such
societies even if they were to become more affluent may continue to find
happiness elusive even for retirees.
Leisure is intrinsically sought after by all as a way to release
the tensions and stresses of work-life. It is often used to indulge in
play – as is witnessed by how constantly obsessed nowadays people are
with surfing the Internet, movies and games through their smartphones.
There is no doubt that these are enjoyable activities.
But leisure also allows people – without the need of any modern
gadgets – to re-connect with family and friends and experience the
happiness arising from that interaction such as chatting over a drink or
meal.
Health
Historically,
major Eastern mystical teachings on human development, like those from
India and China, do not make a separation between the spiritual and
physical. Happiness or contentment was never viewed as an isolated state
from physical health. Physical health-enhancing practices such as Hatha yoga and qigong – and their respective herbalism known as Ayurveda and TCM (traditional Chinese medicine)
– were consonant with and fully integrated into those mystical
teachings in the implicit belief that the attainment of the ideal state
of consciousness requires a healthy body as a launchpad or basis even.
Personal development and health in these systems are understood
more as a holistic development of the various aspects of the
multidimensional human being.
The concept of body and mind interplay (including relationship factor) now known as psychosomatic medicine
has always been present in these "mystical teachings", particularly in
TCM. An unhappy, angry patient may be told by a TCM physician that
there is a lot of trapped heat in their internal organs and then treated
accordingly with herbs or acupuncture. At times, if the TCM physician
is a qigong practitioner, they may even recommend some qigong exercises
for the patient to practise.
However given that adepts in such complex holistic analysis and
treatment are hard to come by, Eastern health maintenance practices may
not necessarily be always adequate, reliable or even safe. Mainstream
Western medicine and a good personal knowledge into the common health
issues and how to treat them safely at home should also be included in
the total package to ensure good health so that the human body can be
fit vehicle for optimal and positive performance – the foundation of
happiness.
Outer success and material possession are secondary when health
is compromised. One cannot be happy or contented when the body is
broken, although there are rare, exceptional individuals who are able to
rise above their physical predicament. However, for the vast majority
having a good knowledge and an effective protocol for personal health is
critical to happiness not just to oneself but also to one's family and
friends.
Laughter
Laughter
is synonymous with happiness. A proposal is made here that when a line
of thought (e.g. joke) or sensation (e.g. tickling) is not expected by
one's psychological or physiological order respectively, it triggers a
certain chaos and temporary breakdown of that order. The innate
Contentment intrinsic to the person then breaks through this temporal
breach to express itself in happy laughter.
Laughter has been used as a health therapy for many years such as in some hospitals through the showing of TV comedies for patients. Laughter clubs
have also been formed in India and some Asian countries to promote
laughter as a form of health-enhancement through regular meet-ups.
Universal social welfare
Contentment
has also been studied as a cultural or political phenomenon. The
Nordic nations, which have repeatedly appeared near the top in Happiness
Index surveys like World Happiness Report – and most likely correlated economic performance as well – contend that higher rates of happiness are rooted in their welfare system, the "Nordic model",
which not only fulfills the healthcare, social and other essential
needs of their people but also is proposed to provide a high sense of
security.
Other research indicates a substantial portion of Scandinavians
exaggerate their sense of happiness or contentment when asked informally
or in surveys, due to social prohibitions against expressing negativity
or unhappiness.
The region's rates of alcohol abuse, among the highest in Europe, have
also been cited as an indication that the positive social effects
attributed to the Nordic model are exaggerated.
Judaism
Some of the earliest references to the state of contentment are found in the reference to the midah (personal attribute) of Samayach B'Chelko. The expression comes from the word samayach (root Sin-Mem-Chet) meaning "happiness, joy or contentment", and chelko
(root Chet-Lamed-Kuf) meaning "portion, lot, or piece", and combined
mean contentment with one's lot in life. The attribute is referred to in
the Mishnahic source which says, "Ben Zoma said: Who is rich? Those who are happy with their portion."
The origins of contentment in Jewish culture reflect an even older thinking reflected in the Book of Proverbs
which says: "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face; A sad heart makes a
despondent mood. All the days of a poor person are wretched, but
contentment is a feast without end."
The issue of contentment remained in Jewish thinking during the Middle Ages as evident for example in the writings of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, an eleventh-century Spanish poet-philosopher who taught:
Who seeks more than he needs, hinders himself from enjoying what he has. Seek what you need and give up what you need not. For in giving up what you don't need, you'll learn what you really do need.
Islam
In Islam, true contentment is achieved through establishing a relationship with Allah, always keeping Him in mind. The Quran states:
“ Truly, it is in the remembrance of Allah(God) that hearts can find contentment. ” — Quran - 13:29
This verse reveals that the more the people gain the trivial goods of
this life, the greater becomes the hunger and the consequent burning of
their hearts. Moreover, there is no end for worldly desires and greed.
But as for those who seek God, the more they turn to Him, the greater is
their peace of mind. This means that a search for the divine or a supreme Deity is inherent within human nature and the innermost yearning of a human being. The real and ultimate goal of a person's life.
“ If the son of Adam (the human being) were given a valley full of riches, he would love to have a second one; and if he were given the second one, he would love to have a third, for nothing satisfies the belly of Adam's son except dust (of the grave). And Allah forgives he who repents (turns) to Him. ” — Saheeh Bukhari-Vol 8:book76
Eastern religions
In Yoga (Yoga Sutras of Patanjali),
movement or positions, breathing practices, and concentration, as well
as the yamas and niyamas, can contribute to a physical state of
contentment (santosha).
In a Buddhist
sense, it is the freedom from anxiety, want, or need. Contentment is
the goal behind all goals because once achieved there is nothing to seek
until it is lost. A living system cannot maintain contentment for very
long as complete balance and harmony of forces means death. Living
systems are a complex dance of forces which find a stability far from
balance. Any attainment of balance is quickly met by rising pain which
ends the momentary experience of satisfaction or contentment achieved. Buddha's task was to find the solution to this never-ending descent into dissatisfaction or Dukkha. The Buddhist faith is based on the belief that he succeeded.
Sikhism
Contentment (or Sabar or Santokh) is important an aspect in Sikh
life and is known as attainment of First Treasure. Sikhism categorizes
Contentment into two forms: Contentment (Santokh) and True Contentment
(Satt Santokh/Sabar). Contentment can be broken, turning souls greedy
for the temporal world, but True Contentment is never broken and such a
soul is eligible for the Supreme State. The soul having contentment is called Saabari or Santokhi.
