Contentment over Happiness

Sure, we all want to feel happy.  But seeking contentment is a better goal.  Happiness is a mood state, inevitably fleeting, while contentment is more sustainable.  Here are some thoughts on how to find it.

I define contentment as being able to be in the moment BECAUSE you have a sense of the larger picture–you’re able to appreciate momentary pleasure and shrug off stress and annoyances by virtue of knowing that you are where you want to be on a grander scale (or you can envision yourself getting to where you want to be.)

I know, it sounds deceptively simple.  Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do. 

 Like when people tell you “Be in the moment” or “Be spontaneous”–you become all the more self-conscious.

But they also get easier with practice.  Mindfulness and appreciation can be learned skills.  They come more naturally to some than others, but if you stick with it, you will improve.

1)  When your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present.

I say “gently” because frustration is an enemy of being in the moment.  And contentment involves some degree of present-focus.  So if you’re on, say, a family outing and you’re thinking about all the laundry you have to do, remind yourself to be where you are.  You’ll probably have to remind yourself of this multiple times, and that’s okay.  It’s all practice.

2)  Realize that  happiness–like frustration or irritation or anger–is fleeting.

The reason this is actually a positive realization is that we have a tendency to forget that all emotions pass, given time.  So when we’re in a negative space, we need to pause, breathe deeply, and let it go by.  When we’re happy, we need to embrace it because it’s finite.

3)  Contentment lasts.

That’s because there’s a cognitive component to contentment.  Taking stock of where you are and deciding what you love, what you can change, and what you need to accept is key to contentment.

If you make lists and re-read them, it will help ground you overall.  That will make numbers 1 and 2 on this list easier to practice.  You’ll have something to draw on in that larger scheme.

Self-compassion and the recognition that life is a process, not an outcome, will also be helpful.  Contentment is about cultivating a mindset that promotes happiness.  Then you don’t need to chase it, or to run away from negative emotions, either.

Happiness Is Real

There, I said it.

In order to understand this, let’s first establish some definitions.

Happiness is not a state of having. If this were so, happiness would be a result of what each of us were able to accumulate in life. It would be forever dependent on something other than the self, an externality capable of ceasing within time.

If such were true, happiness could also not mean a state of being. A state of being focuses on the ‘here and now:’ on life at a particular moment within the present. But not every moment in life ought to be happy: people get sick, relationships shatter, individuals experience trauma or lose a loved one.

Being unhappy (a lesser degree of happiness) isn’t the same thing as being sad (the opposite of happiness), and I would advocate a life with periodic unhappy moments over a life of sadness. If not a state of having (past) or a state of being (present), happiness, therefore, must be a state of becoming (future): a process of becoming happier than one is now.

When we think of happiness as a state of becoming, our lives become a process of continuous growth and effort in becoming more than whatever transpires at the current moment. Happiness is a choice to be different tomorrow than one is today.

Happiness is the state of becoming more than what we currently are. It isn’t about knowing every detail about every event at all times, but knowing that we are each placed in a situation because there is something that only we can offer therein. Happiness isn’t about accepting pain and suffering blindly, but picking ourselves up again because we know that our time on Earth isn’t over and that there’s still potential waiting for us to achieve.

A state of becoming means that we’re part of something much larger than ourselves. We connect our unique fragment to the larger, collective whole. And feeling wholesome means realizing that not only is happiness a process, but it is a shared journey of mutual support. We each offer something to repair our fragmented society.

When people ask me how they can live a meaningful life, my answer is usually the same: live life meaningfully. True meaning is personal and can only be decided by each individual. Lots of people use the “cup being half-empty/half-full” metaphor when trying to help others see more positivity in their lives, but I’d like to offer a different analogy.

There are two containers in life: a small cup and a large bottle. We can fill the cup to its maximum and the large bottle less than 3/4 of the way up while still collecting the same amounts of liquid. But, which container is more full?

While the cup is filled to capacity, the bottle still has room for more substance — still possessing that much more than the small cup will ever be able to hold. In life, it’s not how prestigious we are (how large our vessels are), but how much of our potential capacity we’re able to reach.

Being a happy person, and living a meaningful life, doesn’t necessarily mean being bigger or better than another, but rather being the biggest and best you can be.

When we try to be somebody else, we essentially try to fill a vessel, a capacity, that is not our own. Living a meaningful life means that we need to look into our psychological selves and see how best to utilize the vessels we’ve been given.

When I teach that happiness is a state of becoming, I mean that it’s a process of filling our own vessels and looking to maximize our own unique potentials. Some of us have more, and some of us have less, but each of us has a potential that only we can reach and actualize. We each have something unique that we can contribute to society at large.

Or perhaps better yet, think of society (or life in general) as one giant book in which we each contribute a chapter. We’ve written part of that narrative already in the years we’ve lived thus far, but can still make choices as to what we will write moving forward.

So, don’t try to be, or fill, someone else’s vessel — be and fill your own. Don’t look at what you’ve achieved to date — the substances you’ve filled your life with so far — but rather at how much more you’re capable of filling, at what you’re capable of becoming tomorrow. Potential is endless, but only reachable if you’re striving to meet the potential that belongs to you.

Thanksgiving to Advent

When we were in our early 20s, a friend of mine called it “the day of thanks:” Thanksgiving dinner at 2:00 at her mother’s house, another full holiday meal at his mother’s at 6:00. Each mother was widowed and couldn’t bear the idea of celebrating any holiday without one of her kids. And each kid, now young adult, couldn't bear being the one that would disappoint mother. So, at each house, the young couple felt obliged to eat enthusiastically and almost to pretend that the other family didn't exist. In December, they went through it again, this time in the form of painful negotiations about whose house got them first for Christmas. 

After all the Turkey has been clean, cut, and make into soup. The preparation of Advent is a the key to proceeding to the Birth of Christ our God. Advent is when we all prepare how we will be during the season of 'Glad Tidings,  & Comfort and Joy." From the preparation of the Birth of Christ will prohibit any toxicity and discomfort of everything we are expected to be and do. Christ our God Is the Only 1 that permanently release each one of from anxieties and toxicity from our existence. 

Every year, I watch the issues around the turkey trail come up for friends and clients alike as the holiday season approaches. Some families manage to find creative solutions that really work. Other families are so painfully fair about who goes where, that everyone ends up feeling vaguely guilty and unhappy no matter what they do. Still others greet every November with new dread as they try to figure out what to do this year. What’s really going on?

Often enough, the problem is a developmental issue that people don’t have a name for or a friendly way to understand. Marriage, then the arrival of grandchildren, marks an important shift in primary loyalty from the family in which we grew up to the new family unit.

Negotiating Change

The negotiations about where and how we spend which holidays is an important exercise in establishing who we are in relation to each other as a couple and what roles we take in relation to our extended families. Done well, these negotiations lead to comfortable, healthy relationships among all family members. Done badly, there’s a price: The new family may not develop a strong enough identity to sustain it through hard times. Tension stays between the generations, coloring every family event. Where people spend each holiday can become a point scored in a painful contest of loyalties.

The issue often comes to a head when the new family has children in the preschool years. 

There comes a time when it becomes very clear that it is just too difficult to pack up the kids, the kid paraphernalia, the gifts, and the contribution to the holiday dinner — all to make the sojourn “home” for the holidays. It becomes important for the new family to stop rushing to get somewhere else and to let themselves enjoy a leisurely Christmas morning or first Hanukkah night, to let the children enjoy the gifts they have just received, and to let the adults relax. In the natural evolution of a family, “home” is no longer where the parents lived as children. “Home” is right here.

Some families make this natural process so unnecessarily painful. The older generation feels rejected, unappreciated, and angry. The younger generation feels pressured, guilty, and resentful. Because they don’t recognize that what is going on is a healthy shift in family loyalties, people start pushing at each other in hurtful ways. Sometimes awful things get said as the young family begins to try to establish their own traditions and the older generation tries to hold on to what is familiar. The family eventually does reconfigure, but the sting of how it was done shadows the holiday season for years.

Reducing Family Tensions

It doesn't have to be this way. When the source of family tension is such a developmental shift, my job as a therapist and educator is to help the various family members understand that lying beneath all their emotions of anxiety, anger, fear, and general upset is a perfectly normal and useful stage. We can then work together to figure out how to renegotiate what has always been to what is needed now.

The older generation can be enormously helpful in this process by sharing memories of how hard the same shift was when they were young and by giving a kind of permission for the new family to begin to make their own traditions. When the older folks take the pressure off in a loving, non-manipulative way, adult children are more likely, not less, to include their parents’ needs in the equation. The younger generation can help by appreciating how difficult the change can be for the older folks who are dealing with their own issues of loss. Further, adult children need to be mindful that the same issue will confront them someday from the other side. How they manage it now is a model for their own children as they grow. When the generations try out new solutions together, the issue becomes a problem that everyone is working on instead of a painful process of push-and-pull.

It almost doesn't matter what a family comes up with as a solution to the turkey trail. What matters is that people feel loved, included in the process, and involved in making the whole thing work for everyone at least some of the time. Many families do this without benefit of professional help. But sometimes calling in a family therapist, a trusted family friend, a Priest or Dr. Nicholas Losito,Ph.D,  can help people manage their feelings and find new ways to cooperate. Whatever route people choose, working through the holiday dilemma in a way that leaves everyone feeling loved and secure in their family relationships is a lasting and wonderful gift for all involved.

Treat YourSelf Right !