Tuesday, April 19, 2016

42479 :: I like to browse

Sometimes, when I have a little free time, I like to browse and Google "contentment." I often come up with some interesting (or sometimes ridiculous) quotes, often sentiments that are a little further "out there" than where I live, but many times I will run into something that resonates with me and I say, "Aha! That one I have to pin on my board."


I do not define contentment by modern psychology. If I did, I would have to have wasted much more time than I did in college Psychology classes to even begin to wrap my brain around such statements as:

Contentment is hypothetically a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease in one's situation, body and mind. Colloquially speaking, contentment could be a state of having accepted one's situation and is a milder and more tentative form of happiness." - Eisenblatt, S (2002). The Straight Road to Happiness: A Personal Guide to Enable Us to Overcome Tendencies which Block Our Natural Flow of Happiness and to Explore New Horizons of Inner Joy. p. 292.

Wikipedia does, however, boil it down nicely when it states:

A more practical way for most people would be to simply practice contentment as an attitude: Just be contented. It might be added that being grateful for the good things – to count one's blessings – is perhaps a more reasonable way to understand what contentment as an attitude is about.
Practicing contentment as such does away with the need for other concepts – be it arguments about why one is unhappy and various practices to achieve contentment. Seen in this light, contentment is not an achievement but an attitude that one can adopt at any time. There is really no explanation or teaching needed for this.

I guess I am just simpleminded, but I can for sure wrap my mind around the statement:

...we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it...if we have food and clothing we will be content with that... -1 Timothy 6:5-8

I have a lot of appreciation for Wikipedia as they use as an illustration of "Contentment" the painting (the image is now in public domain) by 20th century Belgian artist Edgard Farasyn, Human Contentments.


Yes, enjoying a life well lived, sitting in the garden with my child or grandchild, something to read and a glass of wine. I can most definitely be content with that.

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