Become Content With What You Have

In our fast-paced, interconnected modern world, it’s hard not to constantly want something new, something better, something faster. Whether it’s your car, your house, or your family, we’re always looking for ways to trade up, always chasing the next best thing. But this cycle of pursuit and temporary satisfaction is never-ending. To free yourself from it, you must eventually become content with what you have. This doesn’t mean you never seek improvements within yourself or your quality of life, but it does mean to stay conscious of how lucky you really are, and finding simple joys in everyday moments.

Steps

Taking Action to Be Content

1. Find joy in simple things. Being content is celebrating and reflecting on positive, happy memories. The memories and experiences which bring the most joy are often of a basic, everyday sort. For instance, you might find joy in eating a pie with your brother, playing baseball with your dad, or walking through the woods with your sons. Staying conscious of these simple things can help you become more content.
2. Stay mindful. Mindfulness is the awareness of your internal thoughts and feelings, as well as of your external environment and bodily sensations. Cultivating mindfulness will help you stay in the moment instead of dreaming and scheming about how you can acquire more things and attracting more attention.
   • Pay close attention to the physical sensations you encounter and the condition of your body. Notice your posture, rate of breathing, and facial expression, especially when your emotions are running high. Scan your body from top to bottom. Start with your toes, then move to your legs, torso, arms, hands, and head. How does each limb or body part feel? Is it tensed? Loose? Aching or sore?
   • Become more aware of your senses. Feel the wind in your hair, the water from rain or the shower hitting your face, and the soft flutter of sheets on your skin. Try the raisin exercise, in which you utilize all your senses, one at a time, to describe a raisin in excessive detail.
   • Various forms of meditation are also useful for cultivating mindfulness. You could try walking meditation or loving-kindness meditation in order to identify better with all people of the world and refocus your thoughts and attitudes.
   • Remember that your emotions are not in control of you; you are in control of them. Your emotional reactions do not define you, only your actions do.
3. Be generous. Being selfish and narcissistic make us always want more. Many people get trapped in the cycle of “keeping up with the Joneses” and chasing after the newest styles, toys, cars, and technology. But doing so is directly at odds with the objective to be content with what you have. Generosity can help you overcome these selfish feelings.
   • Offer what you have to others, both in terms of time and material goods. Contact your local food bank, animal shelter, or soup kitchen and ask if they’re looking for volunteers. If they are, sign up for a few hours each week. You’ll not only provide a practical and important service to your community, but you’ll build your own sense of contentment as well.
   • If you do not have time to donate, purchase some canned goods and donate them to homeless shelters or food pantries. Dry goods like pasta are a good choice. Canned fruits and vegetables also make good donations. Perishable items like bread and fresh produce are typically discouraged.
   • Check your closet and basement for things which you no longer utilize or have use for. Toys, old books you’ll never read again, and clothes are some of the most common things which we accumulate over the course of our lives. If they do not excite you, pack them in a box or bag and donate them to second-hand stores.
4. Express gratitude. You need not express gratitude to an individual. It is enough to recognize how lucky you are each day. It's easy to give thanks for all the small things in your life.
   • Express gratitude for your health. When you breathe in, for instance, stay conscious of your good health (if applicable). When you wake and open your eyes in the morning, recognize how lucky you are to have eyes to see (if applicable).
   • When you watch TV with your family or friends, you can recognize how lucky you are to have such great people to spend time with. You could also be thankful that you have time to watch and resources to own a TV.
   • If your dad is really helpful when you’re trying to work through some homework, say, “Thank you. I really appreciate all your assistance.”
   • Remember to be thankful for the basics. Food, shelter, family, friends, and a job are all that's truly needed.
   • Keep a gratitude diary. Write down all the things you are grateful for daily in your gratitude diary. It does not matter if there is repetition for some things you are thankful for on multiple days.
   • Read the news. Understanding how others live and what conflicts are going on in the world will help you better understand your own place in the world relative to others.
5. Only keep the things you love. When you’re feeling frustrated or bored with your material goods, think about each particular object’s history. Ask yourself, Who gave it to you? When? Why? Answer these questions in the form of a story in order to decide whether it is worth keeping. For instance, when you see your TV, you might think, “This TV was a birthday gift from my wife. She bought it because she knew I was tired of the old, poor-quality TV I had before. We have spent many happy hours watching films and shows on this TV.”
   • If the item has a special resonance for you, as the TV in the foregoing example does, you should retain it.
   • If nobody gave you the object in question, but you bought it yourself, ask yourself if it brings you joy. Do you still associate it with certain happy memories? Can you imagine life without it? If not, you should discard it.
   • Hold onto only those things which bring real joy. When you pick up, think about, or look at a certain personal object, if it does not make you feel like it belongs in your life, or if it doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you should discard it.
   • Don’t let your objects and possessions rule or define you. Don’t hold onto things just because you might someday have a use for them.
6. Practice optimism. When confronted with a difficult situation, believe that things will work out in your favor. See the best in people and don’t be quick to assume people are possessed of ulterior motives.
   • For instance, if you meet someone who you like and who seems to really like you, instead of thinking “We’ll just break up in a few months anyway, dating would be pointless,” be optimistic by taking a chance and going out with her.
   • Being optimistic doesn’t mean being naïve. Bad things happen, yes. But it is important to expect good things and keep a positive mental attitude when faced with challenges.
   • When bad things do happen, ask yourself: is this situation really that bad? Is there anything good that might come of it? Is there a way for me to learn from this that I can apply to future experiences?

Discovering the Attitude of Contentment

1. Be humble. Recognize that you don’t know everything. Be honest about your faults and weaknesses. Don’t obsess over your reputation, or take serious offense over what people who do not know you well think of you. While you shouldn’t allow people to walk all over you or verbally abuse you to your face, you should understand that people often say things which are stupid and untrue. Recognizing that the people who say hurtful things about you or those you care for have problems which you did not cause can bring an inner peace and contentment.
   • If you’ve hurt someone, or lashed out in anger, apologize. Say, “I am sorry for hurting you, can you please forgive me?”
2. Do not make happiness contingent on something or someone else. Do not constantly look for the perfect partner or job with which to make you happy. These things can bring happiness, but being truly content requires that your contentment is not linked exclusively or primarily to them.
   • If you lose the job or partner that you love, find something new to bring contentment. Remember that there are many jobs and many people who can make you happy.
3. Don’t be jealous. Instead of worrying about what you deserve, or what others should do for you, learn to be thankful for what you have. If your parents give your brother a big vacation for his birthday and they give you only a night out at the movies, don’t hold a grudge against either your brother or your parents. Instead, be thankful you had the night out. Don’t obsess over what you did or didn’t get. Doing so will reduce your overall contentment.
   • Explore why you feel entitled to more than you’re receiving. Do you feel snubbed? Do you think you’re better than the person who received more than you did?
   • Look for the upside to your jealousy. For instance, imagine you are jealous of a friend who was asked to donate to a good cause when you weren’t. You might be jealous of the person who was asked. But upon reflection you might realize you were jealous because you wanted to donate to a good cause as well. This means your heart’s in the right place.

Becoming Content With Your Relationships

1. Devote time to family and friends. Spending time with happy, positive people will tend to make you happy and positive as well. Find time for family and friends who care about and support you emotionally. Talk with them about your hopes, dreams, and desires.
   • For instance, if you get a raise at the office, you should share it with your family or close friends. Host a small get-together to mark the occasion at your home or at a restaurant.
   • Be generous with your praise and complements. If you see a friend wearing a handsome shirt, say “Wow, that shirt looks great on you.”
   • Being happy and content is a positive feedback loop. When you’re with people who are content, you’ll feel more content. Your contentment will make them feel more content as well.
2. Get to know your partner. Always aim for a deeper, more intimate level of emotional connection with the one you love. Familiarity might, over the long term, make it seem as though you know everything about them, but there is always more to discover. Ask what they think about current goings-on in their work life or their view of current events.
   • Watch the news with your partner regularly and discuss topics of importance.
   • When your partner returns from work or school, ask how their day went. Don’t just take “Fine” or “Okay” for an answer. Press them about who they talked or what they learned.
   • Dig deep into your partner’s life and you’ll stay content with them.
3. Recognize your partner’s complexity. Do not overemphasize the negative qualities of your partner. For instance, when thinking of your partner, do not make the fact that he or she snores or has poor grammar their defining feature. Instead, take a slightly idealized view of your partner. In other words, focus mostly on their good qualities.
   • When your partner is complex and has a many-layered personality, you will be more interested over the long term. People in long-term, satisfying, and content relationships see their partner’s flaw and foibles, but perceive them overall in an idealized way. For instance, recognize that your partner might be constantly late, but concentrate first and foremost on their great sense of humor, sharp mind, and incisive analytical acumen.
4. Don’t fall prey to emotional addiction. Emotional addiction is the state of constantly chasing after someone who makes you feel good. If you are emotionally addicted to someone who does not love you back, or to the same degree that you love them, you will end up bitter, confused, and hurt. In order to avoid emotional addiction, build healthy relationships in which you and the other individual mutually value and care for each other.
   • To break the love addiction pattern, step back from your current or recent love relationships and evaluate them objectively. Make a list of all the negative behaviors you’ve engaged in with past romantic partners and compare them with behaviors in your current relationship. Negative emotional behaviors in a relationship context include dependency; short to nonexistent intervals of time between romantic partners or relationships; an inability to gain full closure on past relationships; and a belief in or pursuit of a perfect “soul mate.”
   • If your current relationship evinces signs that it, too, is a product of emotional addiction, break it off and take some time to assess how you can be happy outside of a relationship. Take at least six months of alone time during which you do not date, flirt, or engage in sexual liaisons with anyone.
   • Compare your relationships as an adult to the relationships you had with parents and other authority figures in your life as a child. For instance, perhaps you had a father who never paid attention to you unless you did something to irritate him. As an adult, maybe you go out of your way to irritate many of your partners because you feel they do not pay enough attention to you.
   • Accept yourself as you are, and learn to accept others who you decide to date in the future. Spend time with people who accept you in that way as well.
   • Judge people by their actions, not their words. If someone says that they don’t respect you, don’t rationalize their comments by interpreting it as a joke. Find someone who appreciates you for who you are.
   • Avoid engaging in a sexual relationship before an emotional relationship has developed.
5. Make yourself useful. Doing something you love is important. But doing something others love, remember, and are thankful for is equally important, and can yield an equal or greater amount of contentment. Find a way to make your current line of employment more beneficial more more people.
   • For instance, if you work as a janitor, you might feel your work is unrewarding or monotonous. However, you might explore your work as a janitor in order to find out how to reduce waste in your building. By reducing waste -- for instance through recycling or composting garbage -- you will be offering a valuable service to your whole community and, indeed, the whole world!

Tips

• Remember, every day brings a chance to live a happier life. Learning to be content with what you have will secure your happiness. You will start to feel better before you know it.
• Like all good things, becoming content takes time, but it's worth it!

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