Today I am thankful for contentment. More often than not, we as human beings find ourselves focusing on our happiness – the pursuit of that happiness and then the maintenance of it once we receive it – only to find ourselves utterly disappointed and devastated when it leaves. We then start to question ourselves in an attempt to try to discover what we or someone else did that caused our happiness to flee, all the while increasing our level of disappointment and devastation exponentially.
We all know that happiness is an emotion, just as sadness and fear are also emotions. Contentment is also an emotion. However, personally I have come to realize that contentment is a quite different emotion than the rest, in that it has more of a sense of stability and balance built into it. A person who is happy now can be sad in just a few minutes, and a person who is afraid right now may no longer be afraid in an hour. However, if a person is truly content, their moods are not so easily altered in extreme ways, and when moments of happiness and/or sadness come they do not rock that person to the core, because their state of contentment keeps them in a state of balance, and they know that no matter what is happening in their life right then, good or bad, it is only temporary, and life is going to continue even after that moment has passed.
As with any emotion, you can choose to adopt a lifestyle that is founded on that emotion. For example, you can choose to be a fearful person who runs from everything and everyone; you can choose to be a happy person who is always chasing the next “make-me-happy” fix; or you can choose to be a person who is content in all things, refusing to allow yourself to be thrown about by the storms and the parties of life. Balance is certainly key. And in order to live a life that is truly balanced (a life that contains less stress, chaos and emotional instability) contentment needs to be a goal that is actively sought after on a daily basis.
So, you may be thinking to yourself that you are not sure if this will work for you. That is certainly a valid line of thought. I encourage you, though, to give it a try and see what happens. After all, it’s not going to cost you anything, and it just might be what you have been needing to do. So, why not give it a try?
For those of you who have already discovered the benefits that come with living a life of contentment, what led you to adopt that lifestyle and what are some of the ways that it has benefited you? To those who are struggling with the choice to be content, what do you think is holding you back from living a life of contentment? And to those of you who may not have thought about the idea of living a life of contentment, is this something that you think might be beneficial to you? #lovebythedrop
love by the drop 