Have you discovered your purpose in life? If so, you likely measure all against the fulfillment of that purpose. If not, you probably feel as though there is something yet missing. Rightly so. Purpose drives meaning, and no amount of busywork around the point of purpose can bring a sense of meaning quite the same way that fulfilling your central purpose in life can.
Your recognition of purpose must come from within. Other people, organizations and the like will tempt you to live out the purpose they see for you, but to truly live you must come to the point of realization yourself, from the inside out. Contenting yourself with the purpose drafted by another for you is a compromise that constrains to discontent. It is an odd turn of fate that consumes the lives of many.
Don’t stop there! If you wish to rise above the common state, I encourage you to take a few minutes to appreciate William George Jordan’s perspective on the matter of contentment and happiness this morning:
“Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man should be content with what he has, but never with what he is.
But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; happiness, – never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none can be found in the cup of happiness.“
Gregory Hake 
Wonderful posts!
LikeLike
It is helpful to contunually clarify these things in my heart. It is easy to accept accept the feeling of contenment as the pinnacle, though we are selling out at this point. I think it is important to take constant inventory to look at areas in our lives to see where we have become lukewarm, content and stagnant. I have seen that this can occur simultaneously with progress, so it is insedious, it hides in the shadows. We can be stiving in some areas and falling short in others. These meditations can help us to refine all areas of the worlds we center and allow contenment and discontentment to be the staircase to our higher selves, our greatness in this life. Application of the principles here can illuminate a world darkened by false contentment.Thank you.
LikeLike
The oscillation between a creative acceptance of the present state of affairs as “sufficient unto the day” and the urge to move above and beyond is a rhythm that should operate from the core balance that can only be known in a deep sense of purpose in Being. Without that deep ‘grounding’ there will always be either the numbing ‘contentment’ noted in the passage, or there will be a constant and gnawing discontent that sours everything and never finds resolution.
Many have pinned their hope of happiness on a stagnant or frozen condition with which they could be eternally ‘content’ while others seek the thrills and stimulation of living either ‘on the edge’ or in continual chaos! In truth there are a multitude of textures to be enjoyed and discovered from a well-grounded balance point. On this basis it’s probably true that we can cease striving for happiness, because it can then find us!
LikeLike
I loved your point about purpose. Pupose that comes from within is the pivot around which a happy, fulfillling and exciting life may turn. Why settle for the bovine state of contentment when so much more is available? Appreciate your going to such depth with these posts.
LikeLike
Contentment perhaps can be seen as a tender trap. I think I’ll change the adage to “PAUSE and smell the flowers”!!
Great post, inspiring and practical.
LikeLike
Cute. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
Through the eyes of a drummer, perhaps pleasure would be a beat where happiness would be the rhythm eh? Dig it!
This whole matter of purpose really is not given much thought in the world; if it were, we’d leave each other alone more often than we do. Such great insecurities exist that we pressure people and try to pigeon-hole and fashion them into images of our own making. Parents are notorious for this, but so are our friends at times. It is done by treating each other in the present according to our own selective memories of the past, not allowing room to grow. Sort of like keeping a plant in the same small pot, not giving it the space it needs to develop. True friends are of a different breed however; they ever seek to keep things current and adapt quickly to the pressing needs of the present.
There is a greater pressure than anything that man can create on his own; what I mean is that we are not here to merely satisfy our pleasures, but to bring our pleasures into alignment with our needs, and our needs have only to do with the manifestation of our purpose. Anything I feel that stands in the way of that is mere ‘chloroform’, the anesthetic of the forgetful.
Good day mate!
LikeLike
Great analogy. Thanks Ricardo!
LikeLike
So many people see contentment as a good thing, but the same amount of people also do not see constant progress as the hallmark of a successful life. When you prefaced Jordan’s quote, you wrote of finding your purpose. This is such an important addendum to the quote below it for a few reasons. If you have no purpose, or if you try to live by another’s purpose, you will not be able to maintain any kind of progress for a length of time. There is just no motivation to do it. You will relegate your life to contentment’s miasma, and that will be it for you.
How do you know you’ve found your purpose? There are many indicators that will herald the discovery of purpose, and as each individual matures the idea of their purpose might change. Yet for the purposes of this comment, we will talk about progress as an indicator of finding purpose. Jordan touched on it in his quote. Are you ever really content with the progress you have made? You probably shouldn’t be. If you are, you most likely haven’t found your true purpose yet. And if you have progressed to the pinnacle of achievement where you can be content, you will have the wisdom to understand that you are the exception to the rule.
LikeLike
Discovery of true purpose brings with it an initially uncomfortable yet deeply synergistic combination of feelings. The first, as Jordan mentioned, is the periodic sense of dissatisfaction that comes as a result of not having achieved your ultimate aim; the second is a deep-rooted and permeating happiness that come only as function and true purpose are aligned.
LikeLike
This could be titled “The Anatomy of Happiness”. The point, ” pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; happiness, – never.” is a marvelous safeguard; one to add to our personal navigation instruments. I think the seemingly elusive happiness is tied inextricably to taking the time to discover and understand our purpose. Why would we ever think you could fully use any mechanism without clearly understanding what the purpose for it is. Even when I feel familiar with a new piece of equipment it takes time to discover the finer operational potential, how to expertly use it and what the resuts actually are. I think it is the same for people, what we currently see as our potential and what we believe is the most we can actualize is so meager compared to what the design potential for us holds. It sounds like magic or fairytales because human beings have used very little of their own operational depth.
LikeLike
“Why would we ever think you could fully use any mechanism without clearly understanding what the purpose for it is.” Love that. I would add only “to its fullest potential” between “mechanism” and “without.” Thank you for your comment this morning.
LikeLike
Ah! An excellent expose…
LikeLike
Merci beaucoup.
LikeLike