The Simple Truth I Learned About Contentment

The grass will always look greener on the other side until you start watering your own.

For the longest time, contentment was my personal raincloud. A grey overcast on my life, forcing me to continuously search for the silver lining.

I hated the word contentment. To me, contentment meant settling for less. It meant being ok with everything that was going wrong in my life. It told me to put on a fake smile and embrace my demons.

Contentment meant I had to accept stagnation, accept loneliness, accept things not working out. Contentment was tiring.

Not knowing how to fix this perpetual state of gloom, I began to focus on the people around me. It was the worst possible thing to do but I found temporary comfort in others and I took it. I began to live through others, loving their lives, being happy for them but not realising I was only deepening the emptiness inside me. Mentally I was lost in other peoples lives, but physically I was stuck in a life I no longer appreciated.

This thought process at first really didn’t come from a place of jealousy. I genuinely felt happy seeing others live a fulfilling life. But I made it harder for me to genuinely love mine. I quickly realised while I may not be the green-eyed monster yet, I could easily become it.

My fear of becoming a jealous person was my wake up call.

This forced me to change my perspective. I took some time for myself to reflect. I distanced myself from others online. I spent time with myself and the things I love.

That’s when I realised the simple truth to contentment. The problem was my focus all along.

Contentment is not Complacency.

I struggled with contentment for so long because I was confusing it with complacency. Being satisfied with things not working out or settling for less was never contentment, it was complacency and it was hindering my growth.

It seems like there is a very fine line between contentment and complacency but the two states are completely different. Contentment is being satisfied with what you have but not with who you are. It is being grateful for all that you have been given while striving to improve and grow as a person.

When we become satisfied with who we are, we put a stop to our growth and self-development.

We fall into the dark pit of complacency when we are unwilling to change our present despite being deeply miserable and unsatisfied with it. We focus on the negatives that prevent us from moving forward. We perceive the climb towards fulfilment as impossibly difficult not realising that the equipment needed for the climb is right there next to us. Contentment is like a flashlight in this dark pit. It highlights all that we have already and illuminates the blessings in our lives. It is then up to us to use what we have to begin the climb.

While the climb towards fulfilment seems difficult, it simply begins with practising gratitude and using this positive mindset to reach higher.

It is also the complacent mindset that leads us towards jealousy.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough” ― Oprah Winfrey

The grass will always look greener on the other side but that’s because you stopped watering your own. The garden of your life will not blossom until you give it the attention and work it truly needs. When we constantly focus on what lies beyond our fence and do nothing to cultivate our lives, we begin to decay.

Comparing our lives to others when we are truly unsatisfied and do nothing to change, spirals us into the complacent mindset. It makes it extremely difficult to genuinely be happy for others and even harder to be happy for ourselves.

The problem again is our focus. It is easy to focus on everything but the areas that need fixing.

When you start being grateful for all that you have been given and use this to grow you will soon realise that it is not our problems that make us deeply miserable but our focus and perception.

“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” ― Dale Carnegie