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"Happiness is a fine marmalade but contentment is a citrus grove"
Which would you prefer: Intense but unreliable bursts of happiness, or a calm, underlying sense of contentment with life? I just came across a piece by Guy Browning about the quiet benefits of being content. It’s pithy and provocative, and short enough to quote in full:
Contentment is nature’s Prozac. It keeps you going through the bad times and the good without making too much fuss of either. Happiness is a fine marmalade but contentment is a citrus grove. Children are naturally content because they don’t know any different. It’s the knowledge of difference that breeds discontent and it’s when you finally realise that difference makes no difference that you can reclaim contentment.
It may sound dull, but being content is a profoundly radical position. It means you have no outstanding needs that other people, events or corporations can satisfy. You can’t be manipulated, corrupted, conned, heartbroken or sold unnecessary insurance policies. Contentment is the real peace of mind insurance policies claim to sell. Its definition varies between people but generally includes someone to love, somewhere to live and something to eat. And, almost always, one item of sentimental value.
The path to contentment is well signposted but generally points in the opposite direction to where we want to travel. Instead we rush off getting everything we want and then realise we don’t need any of it. A quicker way to contentment is to realise you don’t need any of the things you think you want before spending 40 years trying to acquire them.
Being happy with your lot seems to be the essence of contentment. If you are one of life’s good-looking millionaires, you just have to accept your fate and not continually struggle against it. Being unhappy with your lot is perfectly understandable when the one you’ve been given is absolute rubbish. Sadly there is no cosmic car boot sale where you can get rid of the lot you’re not happy with. All you can do is look at other people’s car boots and be happy with the junk you’ve got in your own.
Restless discontent is often held up as the great wellspring of personal and artistic progress. This is the ants-in-the-pants theory of progress and works well if you think progress consists of substituting one state of unhappiness with another. That said, contentment can be dangerously close to the squishy sofas of smugness and complacency. It’s worth remembering your lot can quite easily be an epic struggle against overwhelming odds but, even if it is, you can still be content with it.
I like the core idea: That we can waste our whole life trying to get what we don’t yet have, when in fact there is a peace to be found in accepting one’s situation, and making the most of it. But I’m worried about the edges of the argument, for two opposite reasons (both of which, to be fair, are half-addressed in the article).
First, it’s good that we are sometimes frustrated and exasperated and striving for more. This motivates us. It makes us seek answers, or fight for justice, or simply tighten things up a bit.
Second, I think there is a kind of contentment that can be found even if the ordinary elements of a ‘content life’ seem to be missing. It’s easy to say this when I have food in my belly; and perhaps I can only do so in the light of my Christian faith. Here, Christ himself, and all the saints, show us an inner peace and joy that can be found in God even when the ordinary expectations of life seem to be frustrated. This doesn’t mean that Christianity is a religion of passivity or despair. It simply means that the peace of God is a gift more powerful than any worldly setback, and a necessary foundation for any slight progress or major revolution that might eventually take place.
Reading this reminded me of something I believe is called A Franciscan Benediction. There are several versions out there in cyberspace, but this one came up first in the search engine.
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”
I find it odd that you both fell uncomfortable with “contentment”. While my philosphical reasoning may not be as educated as yours, I find sound sense in Mr Browning’s position…..
contentment is a very useful state…. the resultant inner peace leaves us far more useful to the rest of society. We are able to devote more energy to helping others rather than diverting it to repair our own broken spirits. Surely you cannot believe that malcontents have more to offer and that we have less access to salvation with inner peace.
I don’t disagree with you. Contentment is a great gift; something to be sought in the midst of whatever is happening. As long as there is still that bit of fight and fire that keeps us alert and stops us grinding to a halt. Malcontentment/discontentment is not a virtue; grumpy people are not very attractive or useful; but restlessness can be a good thing sometimes as well.
Hi,
Great article! I completely agree, expectations play a key role
regarding how happy we are. I recently thought about this too. I
invite you to have a look at Role and
importance of “expectations” in being happy and tell me
what you think!
Thanks, Nick
Certainly think that some people experience happiness more intensely than others. For example, the sort of happiness in “the clouds methought did open up and show riches ready to drop upon me that when I wak’d I cried to dream again” – Shakespeare, The Tempest. But the sort of person who experiences this kind of happiness, also, experiences “dark night of the soul” more intensely than others.
And then you have others who have a more balanced kind of happiness that we might call contentment. Neither, i think, is better or worse than the other. Just different.
In fact, i think both types of people are attracted to each other. Perhaps the contented person needs something special to inspire them from the time-to-time such as the person who experiences “riches ready to drop … I cried to dream”. And “riches ready to drop … I cried to dream” person is attracted to the more calm nature / happiness of the contented person (?)