Contentment

If you are above 18, then you were’nt born into a consumerist soceity. Well… if you are above 28 years of age then you weren’t raised in a consumerist society. And yet, we live in a consumerist society. The year 1991 was a defining moment in the history of Independent India. It opened the flood gates of consumer products that has slowly changed the hue and texture of life itself.

Luxuries have been redefined as necessities. Our lives are evaluated by the gadgets we have. As one bumper sticker puts it: ” The person with the largest toys wins”. Success now is being the envy of the neigbour. We buy and buy things that don’t really satisfy. Happiness does not outlast the buying moment.

We go on to buy the next best thing. We go for the better, the bigger and branded things. Another bumper sticker makes a very perceptive remark: ” We buys things that we do not need, with the money that we do not have, to impress people who don’t care”. How sad!

Our parents lived happy lives, more often than not without the gadgets that we have, the disposable incomes that we have, and the entertainment that we get sucked into. Contrary to contemporary estimate about the past, Their lives were not any less meaningful. They enjoyed life because they were content.

They had an “abundance mentality”. They always looked at people who did not have as much as they did. They seldom compared themselves with those who had much more than them. They worked hard. They were extremely happy and they raised us up – sadly with dreams! The dreams were supposed to be “inspiration” for a better life. But, the consumerist world has changed these very dreams into ” aspiration”.

We got obsessed with ” I want it- I want it now and I want it anyhow “. Most of us chase these dreams. We get worked up – We get stressed out – we suffer a burn out. We struggle to get away from the “tired – tensed and torn ” work life.

Contentment is a lost virtue. We must re-discover it. The quicker we do, the easy is the experience. What is it that we accumulate? Why do we want to accumulate these things? What is that we are chasing after? Life is too wonderful to be spent chasing after a mirage. Life is to be lived.

• Focus on what you have. Don’t focus on what you don’t have.
• Learn to cherish what you have. Look at how you were able to get what you have today.
• Relish all the experience, the learning and the hardwork that has given you what you have today.
• Re-live the joy of achieving what you have.
• Thank all your loved ones (including God) who have helped you get so far in this journey.
• (Re) Start living. Then you will appreciate life a little better. You begin to see things differently.

 

Understand that things/money can’t bring happiness. Happiness is much more than a feeling. It is “being”. Happiness is not instrumental. It is intrinsic. “Things” that you don’t have cannot guarantee the happiness your looking for. Rather, you can find happiness in the very things you have today. Because, happiness is an intrinsic value.

Contentment is the real need of the hour. The first step is to cultivate an “abundance mentality”. The next step is to “re-live” the experience, learning and the joy of accomplishment. Slowly, we would learn to appreciate life – relationships etc. The more we appreiciate life the more we realize how much we have already.