CONTENTMENT: THE SECRET TO A PROBLEM-FREE EXISTENCE...

Everyday, when I wake up in the morning and lay on my bed to sleep at night, the same question pops up on my mind and I begin to ask myself; what is the secret to a fulfilled and successful life? Is it by the amount of money we possess in our bank accounts, the number of cars we drive or the number of landed properties we own? How much power we wield or the amount of influence we control financially, economically or politically?

All that comes to my mind as the response to my questions is good virtues. When we know the right virtues to base our lives on, and we follow the rules of these virtues, living a life full of inner peace cannot be overemphasized.

First, I talked about attitude here, and I talked about humility later here in case you want to catch a glimpse of both write-ups. But today, I come to you with one of the greatest virtue of all, Contentment. Just the way everything we have in life works, it can be used badly and it can be practised in good ways too. When we take on the good side of contentment, we live a fun-filled life without having to worry about the downs of life.

According to Wikipedia here, contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction drawn from being at ease with one's situation, body or mind. I believe the above definition is self-explanatory in order to understand the concept of this virtue I'm emphasizing on.

According to the Collins dictionary here, contentment is a feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction. And from my own point of view, contentment is a mental, emotional and psychological state of peace and satisfaction. From the above definitions of contentment, satisfaction is being a keyword, that is, contentment can be used interchangeably to represent satisfaction.

One of the best state anyone can find themselves in is a state of being satisfied with what they possess. Let me cite an instance from one of the holy books; the Bible. A portion of it says:

Money is the root of all evil.

The above quote will not be valid if and only if contentment comes into play. If for instance, a banker that earns $50 can be satisfied with his pay and not covetous enough to want to earn an engineer's pay of $500, everyone's life will just be as calm and peaceful as the morning dew. But there is chaos everywhere because everyone isn't satisfied with what they have. Everyone craves for more even when they are at their highest peak. The reason for all the chaos in our world today is lack of contentment. Contentment is a virtue that is on a very high level of low circulation and that is the reason for all the problems we face as people, community, country, continent and the world as a whole.

Imagine a world where everyone can be satisfied with what they have without having to compare with a next neighbour. We fail to understand that we all cannot be on the same level financially, politically, influentially or even religiously. But in a world where Mr A isn't contented with the little he has because Mr B is quite on a higher level than him. Mr A loses his virtue of contentment and starts running his race at the pace and speed of Mr B, and in trying to level up, he does unimagineably absurd things.

What surprises me most is the fact that this lack of contentment amongst people is higher in the religious places, members are not satisfied with their positions on the religious hierarchies, everyone wants to be at the top. We should ask ourselves one very simple question, if everyone becomes the head, who will be the body? If everyone becomes the leader like we all crave for, who will be the followers? That's food for thought.

On a world wide platform, if every country can be contented with what they have and cling to them, there will be less chaos and more peace in our world today. Every country wants to be a member of the G8, every country wants to be the most powerful in the world, every country wants to have what others have. I will just ask one question, why can't these countries be contented with their individual natural and human resources?

Well, to drive home my point, I will ask us all a very simple question; how contented are you with your entire existence as a person?
We should all learn to be satisfied with what we have.
We should all learn to be at peace with our inner selves.
We should stop running the race of life at the pace of our neighbours'.

BE CONTENTED....
BE SATISFIED....
AND STAY PEACEFUL WITH YOUR INNER SELF SO AS TO BUILD ENOUGH INNER PEACE....

Thank you for your audience....
Thank you for stopping by to take a look at this....
God bless us all....

All images designed by me