The Unattainability of Contentment.

In the quest of finding a purpose of being, we encounter so many hardships that make this process of being unbearable, if not non existent at all. How many brilliant minds have this world given to us, only to have them living in times of war, and soon end up with a cross above their heads. How many thinkers, artists or even skillful sportsmen have we been gifted, only to have nature go against their will, and put a halt to their profession, a halt that would last a lifetime.

Having Lived

Be grateful, a wise man once said. Whether it was times of joy or times of vain, having lived is a gift itself. The end is always so hard to imagine, thinking is all that matters, you can never predict it, the factors are simply too many, so we take choices based on our wisdom, influenced by those who we look up to, and those before us who have failed. These choices will eventually dictate our lives. We worry whether these choice we are taking are the right ones for us or not, and at some point we might realize that what we thought is right turns out wrong, and the other way around, and we’re stuck in the old dilemma of what’s the right choice to take. The reason behind this is because we usually follow the footsteps of someone who has made it to success, to the place we see as our safe haven, and we usually forget the circumstances that this someone had. We try to imitate our idols, become their disciples, and perhaps one day we can become their successors. But in this process we are losing our own sense of being, our identity, until one day we are awaken by the person who was us, a person who we lost touch with a long time ago. Our idols should be a source of motivation and inspiration, not a source of identity. Be your own identity, really, just be yourself, originality is what made the great.. well, great !

Having known this, you try building yourself up. But this time, you unleash your inner self, taking the decisions YOU make, influenced by your idols, but built by you. There are three endings to the story:

1) Your decisions were never your own, you just followed the path of others, and ended up in a position which might be prestigious, you are successful and people might look up to you, but deep inside you know you’re a fraud to yourself, you’re witty and you knew the right choices to take, but these choices have no meaning to you, as they are not your own, and you are not content.

2) Your decisions will lead you nowhere, whether it was a wrong decision, or you’re just unlucky and nature turned its back on you, but the decision you took bumped you in a wall. Here, you’ll end up running in circles, taking decisions after the other hoping the next one is the right one, every time starting from rock bottom, until one day you realize your time has ran out, and your soul gives up on you. Your life is miserable, and you are not content.

3) The decisions you took are compatible, and you’re led to a harmonious life, prosperity arises, and if you’re lucky enough, you’ll become a legacy, and an idol for the young generations to come and look up to, you are now happy, you have achieved yourself, and in a position you always wanted to, you are original. However, as you have grown, so did your goals, and what was once a dream has given rise to even bigger ones, and you end up in the process of forever tackling your dreams, and going after your goals. But you become tired, and eventually your clock runs out. The end has reached you before you have reached the end, and you are not content.

Dying in Peace

Contentment can never be attained in a materialistic world. Whether life has failed you or you have gone against all odds and climbed where no one else was, you can always look up from Mount Everest and see the stars. We are simply too demanding*. This short journey we call life makes up only a fraction of a second compared to the age of this world. Achievements, prosperity, fame and fortune, in the end of it all, does any of it really matter ?
At one point you will reach the conclusion that it is not about what you take away, it’s about what you give away. Whatever is in your hand, contentment will never be one of them. Contentment can never be bought, nor can it be achieved like a task.

Contentment always implies happiness, but the inverse is not true as we’ve seen above in the third story ending. This is why contentment is the most powerful trait to achieve, and the most difficult, if not impossible. It supersedes happiness. When saying goodbye to this world during our last moments on our deathbeds, we’re definitely not happy being surrounded by our loved ones as they weep, it’s never a happy ending, since it is an ending. However, if we were content, we will die in peace, and if not, we either reluctantly accept death and shed our last tear as we realize that something has been missing all along, or “rage against the dying of the light”-as the poet Dylan Thomas has put it, refusing to let go.

Then how can someone actually die in peace? Is contentment really attainable?
Unfortunately, the answer is still no, but it is possible to die in peace. If we really were content, then we should have no problem accepting death, after all, we do feel fulfilled, and we don’t really mind dying as we have reached an ultimate satisfaction from life. Therefore dying in peace is only possible if the dying person thinks that this death is only the beginning of another journey, an after life, a place where he will find absolute fulfillment, a heaven* of some sort. And thus, as long as he was alive, he was never content. It is true he died peacefully, but he was never really fulfilled, because for him, his fulfillment awaits him in the afterlife. So yes, it is possible to die in peace without being content in this world, if you believed that you will be in the one after.

*A Demanding Lifestyle

No materialistic thing can ever quenches a man’s thirst to contentment. Today we live in the most connected period our world has ever witnessed, whatever we want, from goods to knowledge, exploration and socializing, it’s all there with us, a press of a button away . Yet despite all that, studies have shown that depression has increased in the last decades, we are becoming less satisfied with our lives even though we have more.

*Religion and Contentment

The argument above shows us that religion, such as Semitic ones, are key for a content death, as the worshiper is promised an afterlife. Whether he lived a miserable life or a happy unfulfilled one, there’s still more to the story, and thus death is just another step in the journey to contentment.
And for non-Semitic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, these religions see afterlife as rebirth of one’s life depending on his action in the previous life, karma as it’s called, and thus the soul takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and death.

Be Grateful

I write this paragraph after days of stopping at the last one. I went asking people whether or not they are content with their lives, some said no, and admit that contentment is truly unattainable. But some seemed pretty content, that’s what they have claimed at least. So are they really content ? And if they are, then my above argument about giving your life away upon contentment is false. After listening to their arguments of why they believe they are content, I felt they had a point.
Live the present, they told me, as long as you’re thinking of things you want but do not have, the things you want to do but haven’t done yet, of course you wont be content, there’s always so many things to do, so many things to learn and discover, and you will not do all of them that’s for sure, be content with what you have right now.
However, I disagree, this doesn’t bring contentment, and that’s not what being content even means . Going back home I realized that they are mixing between contentment and gratefulness. Be grateful definitely, “enjoy the embers on your palm, enjoy the steps, but create for as long as you can .” But at some point your life ceases, and the creation you want to keep on doing stops, and you are still not content.