Contentment is one of those words we easily recognize and think we understand—or at least understand it the same way everyone else does. But digging a little deeper reveals that isn’t necessarily so.
Many people, maybe the majority, view contentment in an entirely positive light. But what does it really mean? According to several sources, it’s “a state of happiness and satisfaction” or “a state of quiet happiness and satisfaction.” In positive psychology, it’s defined as “subjective well-being.” One therapist suggests that contentment means “happiness or satisfaction with the current situation” (aka the status quo), another that it denotes the absence of desire.
Contentment is also associated with freedom from care or worry, enjoyment, peace of mind, acceptance, serenity, equanimity, gratification, pleasure, and fulfillment. It contains elements of feeling good, being unbothered, and accepting what’s so.
That’s a lot to pack into a single word! And there’s no general agreement as to whether we’re dealing with an attitude, a mental state, or a feeling.
Essentially, contentment seems to be a synonym, maybe even a euphemism, for whatever positive state we value and seek to experience. Maybe it’s more politically correct to talk about contentment than to talk about happiness or gratification or pleasure, for example (the same way it’s more politically correct to talk about getting our needs met instead of pursuing what we want).
Or maybe the positive state we’re after shifts depending on circumstances—or we haven’t actually pinned it down—and contentment is just the word we use for feeling good rather than bad.
As that sage Humpty Dumpty once said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
What does contentment mean to you?
Happy as a Clam at High Tide*
Happiness—another word that means different things to different people—seems to be the most common synonym for contentment.
In the parlance of the What Do You Want? course, both happiness and contentment would be considered reactive wants, meaning something we want in reaction to a currently undesirable state of affairs rather than something we want in and of itself. My go-to personal example of a reactive want is moving to Tucson, which I think about every winter. I don’t consider moving to Tucson any other time of the year because I don’t particularly want to be in Tucson; in the winter, I want to be not-here (in Albuquerque).
For someone who is dissatisfied, agitated, unhappy, or worried, contentment seems like a worthwhile state to strive for. That’s understandable. But striving to create a steady state of contentment is like striving to create a steady state of happiness. It sounds like a good idea, but it doesn’t deliver and it keeps our attention narrowly focused on ourselves.
Research indicates that if you aim for satisfying and meaningful, instead, you may get happiness as a byproduct. But if you aim for happiness, you will not get satisfaction and meaning as byproducts. And those who pursue satisfaction and meaning, even when the going gets tough, report higher overall levels of satisfaction with their lives. Because what is meaningful is less transitory, we have a better chance of achieving and sustaining a meaningful life—and therefore a satisfying one—than we have of achieving and maintaining a happy life.
*Clams can only be dug up at low tide, so at high tide a clam is safe
and secure, therefore, happy, undisturbed, and presumably content.
Allow Yourself to Be Disturbed
When we’re oriented to something bigger than we are, and bigger than our immediate wants and needs, we’re less susceptible to the pull of immediate gratification. We’re also less at the effect of the day-to-day (or minute-to-minute) fluctuations in our emotional—or environmental—weather.
When we give ourselves something worthwhile to focus on, we can achieve goals or create things that actually make a difference to ourselves and others.
It’s one thing to appreciate happiness or contentment and enjoy those experiences when they arise. But pursuing a particular emotional state is counterproductive. Our emotions can be excellent barometers, but only if we learn how to identify and interpret them and avoid clinging to some and avoiding others.
Our brains were not designed for us to sit around contemplating what we already have. —Loretta Graziano Breuning, Meet Your Happy Chemicals