( reading time: 5 min 33 sec )
Someone once said farmers are not greedy; they just want the land next to theirs. Most of us understand that because we don’t have what we wish for and experience things we didn’t want.
The answer is simple. No matter where we are, we get used to it and learn there are frustrating things mixed in with the good we were looking for. The good things are less exciting than they were initially, and the annoying things become more noticeable. This isn’t reality. It is confusion caused by perspective. The happiness we seek is present where we are.
In this article, we will help you to understand how the illusion of happiness on the horizon distracts us from seeing contentment where we are. We will also show you how contentment has a secret power to deliver the things we hoped to find on the horizon.
What does happiness look like?
Is happiness the source of contentment and gratitude, or do contentment and gratitude create an environment where happiness is a natural choice? We recognize happiness more by the state of mind than anything else. A happy person may have something on the horizon they want and pursue, but they don’t need the future to feel happy here and now.
Distractions are often an evidence we are not happy. The percieved need for more is a common distraction from happiness. Have you ever eaten a dessert that you enjoyed and had more and ended up feeling sick and regretful? We found happiness, but we lost it.
What we learn is happiness depends on both contentment and gratitude. These both work together to create an environment for happiness to be created, and they are also needed to protect it from an early departure.
What happens when happiness is missing in action?
When we expect or desire happiness, but it seems out of reach, we tend to medicate the situation. Medication comes in many forms.
Medication through Meanness
One of the old truths of the Bible states that when hope is delayed, the heart feels anxious. If we tell ourselves that someone stole our happiness, we may act out the story by assigning ourselves the role of the minister of vengeance. The predictable outcome will be that others feel we just robbed them of happiness, and our attitudes will inspire similar attitudes in those we afflict. Now comes a battle of escalation till someone says they surrender. When we are sitting outside the conflict, we know this is not the road to true or lasting happiness.
Beyond the rise in conflict, this approach also leaves us with guilt that our brains feel a need to justify. Anytime we feel a need for justification, we are outside the presence of contentment and gratitude.
Medication through Personal Reward Therapy
These are solutions common in a country where we are rich. These include shopping therapy, restaurant therapy, and other similar therapies. Yes, it was predictable that we would likely mention how attitudes impact our finances at Budgeting Today. We see this in our lives and the lives of our clients.
We are not condemning or condoning these therapy approaches. Some considerations allow each of us to evaluate ourselves. First, without contentment and gratitude, this approach to therapy doesn’t give us traction. It seems more effective at practicing waste and inspiring regret. Waste and regret are not triggers to personal happiness.
Second, when we sacrifice tomorrow to achieve happiness today, it tends to be toxic. If we sacrificed today or yesterday, we would understand why it is toxic because today, we live when we pay for those choices. If those choices were made with contentment and gratitude yesterday, the impact on us today would have generated less waste and regret.
Medication through victimhood
It is also apparent we are not going to experience happiness while we are on a quest to console ourselves in the belief that we are victims. This mindset serves to evict happiness from our present and our future. Focusing on our moments of being a victim doesn’t solve being offended or increase our quality of life. It gives those who victimized us even more negative impact on our lives. Why extend the power of a bully when we can choose happiness in another season?
We also don’t want to exaggerate our victimhood as a path to vengeance. That puts us back on the medication through a meanness mindset. When things are done, we don’t feel happiness. We have moved even farther away from joy and happiness. Plus, the odds are, we have inspired escalation that will continue to rob us of our better objectives.
So, we see some distractions get us off the path to happiness. Let’s look at things that put us on the path.
Contentment’s role in happiness
Contentment is a plateau where happiness is an up moment. Contentment is seeing when things are good, and our needs are met for the present moment and the journey ahead. We don’t have to be down to have an up moment. Content doesn’t keep us from seeing the benefit of more. It keeps us from thinking it is a need when it is not.
In those moments, we recognize the benefits bringing us contentment, and we find happiness. We experience up moments without the need for more. Contentment doesn’t make us complacent. It actually helps us avoid medication, which leads to waste and regret. Contentment also serves as a reality check that guards us from having down moments because we are not in a season of more.
A cousin to contentment is the temporary escape from down moments. When we are in a season of heaviness, grief or dispair, brief escapes give us a sense of happiness. This is a cousin to contentment because we are hopefully not content to be or continue in a down season long term. These breif escapes remind us of of that feeling of contentment and give us moments of happiness that help us journey through the hard times.
Happiness near helps us clarify happiness at a distance.
If we don’t recognize present happiness, we certainly will not understand it from a distance. This perception of what will make us happy is a delusion without being grounded by the present happiness where we are. Greater happiness may be available in the distance, but even that requires recognizing it in the moment we are in.
Happiness is not pleasure, though there are certainly seasons that overlap. Rarely will we experience happiness without a feeling of joy, but pleasure does not give us any guarantee of happiness.
Is happiness the source of contentment and gratitude, or do contentment and gratitude create an environment where happiness is a natural choice?
Gratitude’s role in happiness
Gratitude is not an ignorance of negative things. It is not letting negative things make us ignorant of the positive things. In this world, there are times when negative and positive things exist side by side. Nobody wants the negative things, but gratitude is the ability to see the benefits the positive things bring to a person’s life.
Without gratitude, we lose sight of the good things we now experience because they are not as dynamic as when we first experienced them. These feel like less, and it is easy to be seduced by the promise of more to bring us happiness. It is better to consider those initial moments as bonus seasons where extra gratitude could be felt. Extra is, of course, where gratitude and contentment work together to be mindful of reality.
Now, what about that happiness on the horizon?
If we recognize happiness in the moment, we have a more accurate perspective of happiness on the horizon. Contentment is vital to satisfaction, which prevents waste of present resources. We should use some resources for opportunities to be happy in the present.
We should use our resources wisely to invest in the growth of resources to lighten our load in the future. Growth is not something contentment prevents. It is something contentment makes more manageable to achieve. Here is an irony: contentment by nature, packaged with gratitude, enhances our ability to pursue more.
The horizon we quest for doesn’t make the present fragile when we understand contentment, gratitude, and happiness. Hopefully, with these thoughts, you see the horizon as brighter without making your journey harder.
