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.
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.
By J.B. Cachila, November 27, 2017
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Timothy 6:6)
To be content is a great thing. Many, however, have the wrong idea of what it really means. When we don't understand what contentment really means, we will mask our discontent with all sorts of explanations, not knowing the greed in our hearts.
Webster defines contentment as "a resting or satisfaction of mind without disquiet," and as humility, "without external honor.*" Based on this, to be "content" means to be satisfied despite humble circumstances. Regardless of what we have or what we don't have, we find ourselves happy and satisfied with no complaints.
That said, can we mistake contentment for something else? There are a few common misconceptions that some Christians have about it. Here they are:
1) "Contentment is settling for mediocrity"
Contentment does not mean settling for mediocrity. Many Christians who are content with average do not realize that God desires our best at all times. Think about it.
The Bible tells us that we should meditate on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (see Philippians 4:8). Settling for mediocrity is not on that list.
God deserves nothing but our very best, and so we cannot afford to be mediocre. Colossians 3:23-24 tells us, "whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."
2) "Contentment means not desiring financial prosperity"
Friends, there's a huge difference between desiring prosperity and excellence and being greedy. The difference lies in the desire and the purpose of the desire. To desire to be rich, for example, can be a good or a bad thing. Let me explain.
People who genuinely desire to honor the Lord with their wealth will want to earn more so they can bless the Lord's work. They want to fund evangelistic mission trips, help church members find good jobs, and feed the poor in the community. That's a noble desire.
People who want to be blessed for themselves, for example, just keep asking God to bless them without desiring to honor Him. They may sound religious or spiritual, but they simply want the provisions for themselves. This is deceitful and wrong.
In Isaiah 61:8 God said, "For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering..." We can't be religious and be covetous. Contentment and covetousness do not go together.
3) "To be content means being happy with little"
Friends, being content is not equal to being lazy. Some people erroneously think that contentment means being happy with little even though there are a thousand ways to work and earn a better life. Think about it.
While contentment surely means not complaining to God about our lot in life, it doesn't mean we should be lazy and just accept the circumstances around us. If God wanted us all to beg, then He wouldn't have given us the power to produce wealth (see Deuteronomy 8:18). If God wanted us to live in poverty, then Christ didn't have to become poor so that in Him we could become rich (see 2 Corinthians 8:9).
God wants us to have the abundant life (John 10:10), and we should not be content until we live the life He wants us to live: freed from sin, holy, righteous, and glorifying to Him.
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 Comments
About Contentment
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.
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Three things Christians need to know about contentment By J.B. Cachila, November 27, 2017
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Timothy 6:6)
To be content is a great thing. Many, however, have the wrong idea of what it really means. When we don't understand what contentment really means, we will mask our discontent with all sorts of explanations, not knowing the greed in our hearts.
Webster defines contentment as "a resting or satisfaction of mind without disquiet," and as humility, "without external honor.*" Based on this, to be "content" means to be satisfied despite humble circumstances. Regardless of what we have or what we don't have, we find ourselves happy and satisfied with no complaints.
That said, can we mistake contentment for something else? There are a few common misconceptions that some Christians have about it. Here they are:
1) "Contentment is settling for mediocrity"
Contentment does not mean settling for mediocrity. Many Christians who are content with average do not realize that God desires our best at all times. Think about it.
The Bible tells us that we should meditate on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (see Philippians 4:8). Settling for mediocrity is not on that list.
God deserves nothing but our very best, and so we cannot afford to be mediocre. Colossians 3:23-24 tells us, "whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."
2) "Contentment means not desiring financial prosperity"
Friends, there's a huge difference between desiring prosperity and excellence and being greedy. The difference lies in the desire and the purpose of the desire. To desire to be rich, for example, can be a good or a bad thing. Let me explain.
People who genuinely desire to honor the Lord with their wealth will want to earn more so they can bless the Lord's work. They want to fund evangelistic mission trips, help church members find good jobs, and feed the poor in the community. That's a noble desire.
People who want to be blessed for themselves, for example, just keep asking God to bless them without desiring to honor Him. They may sound religious or spiritual, but they simply want the provisions for themselves. This is deceitful and wrong.
In Isaiah 61:8 God said, "For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering..." We can't be religious and be covetous. Contentment and covetousness do not go together.
3) "To be content means being happy with little"
Friends, being content is not equal to being lazy. Some people erroneously think that contentment means being happy with little even though there are a thousand ways to work and earn a better life. Think about it.
While contentment surely means not complaining to God about our lot in life, it doesn't mean we should be lazy and just accept the circumstances around us. If God wanted us all to beg, then He wouldn't have given us the power to produce wealth (see Deuteronomy 8:18). If God wanted us to live in poverty, then Christ didn't have to become poor so that in Him we could become rich (see 2 Corinthians 8:9).
God wants us to have the abundant life (John 10:10), and we should not be content until we live the life He wants us to live: freed from sin, holy, righteous, and glorifying to Him.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/3-things-christians-need-to-know-about-contentment/119820.htm
* Webster’s 1828 dictionary says “CONTENTMENT, without external
honor, is humility.”
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Simplifying Summary of
Contentment by the Blog Author
Contentment trumps happiness
by accepting what you have instead of getting greedy and wanting more than you
have or probably deserve.
Contentment is increased by
·
A strong family
·
Friends,
especially cronies
·
Satisfaction of
most of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
·
Regular, frequent
laughter
Contentment is likely to
occur in people who are
·
Open to new
experiences
·
Conscientious
promise keepers
·
Extroverts
·
Agreeable (“We
Can Work It Out” – Paul McCartney)
·
Not neurotic
(and, instead, who demonstrate emotional stability)
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