THE JOYS OF CONTENTMENT Jessica Wilker I The topic of tonight’s talk is contentment. To start with though, I will speak about happiness. Happiness literally always comes first, as it is at the top of most people’s whish-list and has a much higher prestige than contentment. Happiness is spectacular and vibrant, it makes our heart beat faster, our eyes shine and it gives us lots of energy. Contentment, on the other hand, is perceived as a bit tepid and colourless. It is more prosaic and even if we feel comfortable being content, we certainly don’t reach seventh heaven. Contentment even has some bad press: to be content is seen to be lazy and complacent, it apparently stops people from getting on and improving. In fact our consumer society actively discourages us to be content: we’re pushed to want more and better things and never to be content with what we have. The highly competitive marketplace doesn’t encourage people to be content with something less than perfect. This colours the way we treat ourselves: we put ourselves under pressure with unrealistic demands, to have the ideal figure, for example, to always look young, to have no weaknesses and to make no mistakes. So instead of feeling at peace with ourselves and with what we have and what we can do, we’re discontented. II In spite of happiness being seen as the bees knees and contentment suffering from prejudices, in reality the story is a very different one. Contentment is actually much more reliable than happiness. With it we can feel good, even if our luck has run out; we can experience joy, even if we don’t get what we want. Contentment gives us the strength to make the best of everything and it protects us from bitterness and despair. What we have is enough, and we feel at peace with our lot. To put it succinctly: happiness is a fine marmalade, but contentment is a citrus grove. In view of these facts I think it is high time to polish its image. So let me show you the benefits of contentment. The best way to do this is by clearing away the illusions about happiness. We might think of happiness as the saviour from unhappiness, but, I have to warn you, the truth is disappointing. Even if we find happiness, it will not free us from suffering. Even if we have what we want, even if we gain that which makes us happy - money, success, love – it will not protect us from pain and disappointments. This is not an easy truth to swallow and for many of us the illusions about happiness are very strong and ingrained. Over and over we look to happiness as the way out of suffering, thereby fooling ourselves all the way. Let me illustrate such foolishness with a little story: One evening a fool walks up and down underneath a street lamp, searching the ground. Someone comes up to him and asks. “ Are you looking for something?” “Yes, says the fool, “I lost my keys.” “Were did you lose them?” “Over there, in the corner.” “But why are you searching here?” “Stupid question”, says the fool, “over there it’s dark and I can’t see anything.” 1 In the light and glamour of happiness we do not find the end of suffering – it is foolish to think so. Happiness doesn’t ban pain, doesn’t make it disappear. Even if we get what we want, happiness can’t be guaranteed, as it is impermanent like everything else in this world. It’s foolish to pin our expectations and hopes on it, foolish to use all our resources to find it. We could use our energy much wiser and more fruitfully by letting our illusions go. It will be more successful to give up trying to manipulate life. We will fare better acknowledging the fact that life throws all sort of things at us and in this takes no notice of our likes and dislikes. It is a better strategy to adapt ourselves to life, instead of trying to adapt life to our wishes, or, as the Indian master Shantideva formulates this strategy: “If you want to protect your feet from the stones and the thorns, you do not have to cover the whole of the Himalayan mountains with leather, it’s enough if you make yourself a pair of shoes.“ III One could say that finding contentment is like making a pair of shoes. Or, in other words: if we want to be content, we have to adapt ourselves to the way it is. When we stop depending on given circumstances for our happiness and instead change our attitude towards them – then we will find contentment. We all know the phenomenon of being able to see a glass half full or half empty. Contentment is the ability to see the glass half full. Let me give you a few examples to bring the point home: Imagine you had decided to paint your kitchen. You bought the paint, covered the surfaces and started to paint. At the end of the day you would have managed half the room. How satisfied you were with this result, would depend on the expectations you have had. If you expected to have the job finished in one day, you would be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you had thought: it takes as long as it takes, you could put the paintbrushes away feeling satisfied. Depending on the standard you had applied, you would judge the result as satisfactory or not. Another example: Imagine you’d have curly hair which would annoy you as you judge it to be too unruly and wild. In that case you would be dissatisfied with your curls and perhaps artificially straighten them. Imagine on the other hand that you would have straight hair, which would annoy you, as you find it boring. In this case you would also be dissatisfied and perhaps have your hair permed. But if you would like your hair the way it is, you could look into the mirror without annoyance and be content. Your own judgments and preferences therefore influence your contentment or discontentment. And that is the point. We ourselves judge what happens to us to be satisfactory and nice or disappointing. Our own ideals, wishes, needs and hopes colour the way we see a situation. Therefore it is our inner attitudes to the outer circumstances that enable contentment to arise. This is good news – as it gives us power. The power to feel good even if life treats us badly, the power to enjoy life even if it deals us a blow. I once watched a powerful documentary on TV about a woman who had been in a train crash. She had suffered head injuries and had to have an arm amputated. In the interview she said: “I feel I have been very lucky, I am still alive. Of course it is not always easy with just one arm, but I have learnt to live with it and have become quite apt at holding things.” She laughed and demonstrated how she can hold a pencil in her armpit. She then continued to tell that she had to give up her job because of the strong headaches, but thought that was not as 2 important as the fact that she was alive. “I am thankful for all I have,” she said, “and for every day I am allowed to stay in this world.” For me this example demonstrates how great our influence is and thinking of this woman helped me many a time to stop complaining when something didn’t go my way. IV The changing of our view is the magic trick which brings contentment. Do you want to know how the trick works? Well, all one has to do is to wave a wand over a ugly thing, abracadabra and hey presto: the thing is still ugly, but we feel less disgusted by it. The magic of the wand doesn’t lie in changing the circumstances – bad luck stays bad luck, loss stays loss, nobody can make the sun shine if it rains. Our power lies instead in choosing such attitudes which enable contentment, and in avoiding such expectations, demands and hopes which don’t. Now this magic trick might sound easy, but I can assure you that it does take some effort to change our habitual ways of looking at things. It is not that easy to find a positive aspect in a negative situation. Nor not to be worried about failures or mistakes. But – and of that I can assure you as well, if you decide to tackle your views and practise changing them, it will get easier and easier. On the practical level I have identified four different mindsets which enable us to perform a desired change of view. Mindfulness One needs to recognize when a change is necessary and for this, one needs mindfulness. It is only through mindfulness that we become properly aware of our dissatisfactions, that we can recognize our nagging and criticizing, our moaning and lamenting as expressions of our discontent. Mindfulness allows us to stay in the here and now - which is exactly the place we have to start from when we want to change something. Everything new comes into existence right here, where the old ceases to be. So frustration ends exactly where satisfaction starts, and the end of discontentment is right there where contentment begins. Distance To be able to decide which point of view would be more appropriate, one needs to be able to see different viewpoints, otherwise one cannot recognize the one which brings contentment.