Elusive contentment

Contentment, that feeling in life of having achieved one’s aims and being where one’s supposed to be, is what likely all humans strive for. It’s the kind of feeling we all know but it’s also one of the most elusive.

The trick is to hold onto the feeling of contentment in a world where we’re constantly told to improve ourselves. Except, it’s not about improvement – it’s about paying life coaches, psychics (the ones that are fake and put on a show for money and manipulation, I realize not all of them are fake), mediums, channelers, and other so-called experts, to show us how to improve ourselves by tapping into some kind of wisdom beyond our world. We’re to improve the way they want us to even when we don’t see any reason to, they will find it for us. They get paid well for their ”wisdom,” so saying, ”You’ve done enough, enjoy” is against their interest.

Why can’t you say, ”That’s enough, I’ve achieved what I’ve wanted to achieve.”

On one hand, you have people who are going to downplay your success and shoot down your ideas. On the other hand, you’re going to have people who are going to keep telling you that you can never stop doing what you’re doing because you’re going to fade into obscurity.

But it’s good to be able to say, ”I’ve done my part, enough, at least for now.” If you can’t do that, then you can write, say, a hundred articles and you’re going to feel like you have no impact. Contentment is about achieving your aims but also being able to sit on the proverbial laurels and moving on. Contentment doesn’t mean you stop doing anything worthwhile – rather, you redirect your attention while letting your past investment take care of itself (for example: articles circulate without you having to do anything about it). If you write articles – focus on writing a novel instead. Become a keynote speaker. Diversify. Otherwise, contentment is going to be a mental mirage, an elusive ontological oasis in the desert.

Some say contentment can be found in prayer. In the temple. By connecting with the divine. The temple, I’m told, because imbibing the atmosphere makes the prayer, the Creator-connection, even more powerful.

For example, I’ve never been to a synagogue. Well, abandoned synagogues, or repurposed synagogues, yes, there are many here in Poland, but I’ve never taken part in a prayer in a functioning synagogue. I’m likely going to end up in one, eventually, as God works in mysterious ways and if that’s His will, there’s nothing I can do, particularly given all my experiences and signs I’ve described on this blog. By the way, Warsaw had one of the biggest synagogues in the world up until 1943. There likely is a parallel reality where that synagogue still stands. Alas, we have no access to that other place.

To sum up, contentment is the ability to rest on your laurels, admit you’ve done enough – whatever enough is for you – and then moving on to other projects. You’ll know if you’ve done enough if you’re honest with yourself. Then again, it doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t go back to your past projects. You must know when to draw the line between one project ending and another starting. If you train your mind like that, contentment will come. If you don’t, you’ll end up chasing contentment forever and ever, never truly appreciating what you’ve achieved, you’ll end up feeling contentment only for a short time, with emptiness returning soon after, even though you’ve achieved a lot. A never-ending need to achieve more and more to silence that inner emptiness. At some point, you need to say enough is enough and go cold turkey, so to speak. Nodding your head in agreement? Yep. I knew it would resonate.