"We need much less than we think we need."— Maya Angelou
Contentment means different things to different people. For some it is to be austere, for some too, it means to be simply comfortable, and for others it is to be wealthy but not greedy. Whatever definition works for you, the most important thing is to be contented in words and action.
Contentment is all about satisfaction, fulfilment and happiness, so how you define that and how it works for you can simply be dependent on you. I haven"t met one person who feels sad about being contented, rather the greedy ones are always unhappy, the only thing that makes a greedy person happy is money, plenty material possessions and even more money, yet they seem never to have enough.
The greedy can wage a war against an entire city because of material possessions yet they will never be satisfied. Please never ever allow greed to overcome you as a person. Do everything to purge yourself of it if you notice any trace of it in you.
Interestingly, no one is born with the feeling of contentment, you build it as you go through life, it is actually one of the best things parents can pa.s.s over to their children, most often than not it is likely you observe the act is common in a family lineage, you will hear people say about a particular family that they are a very contented people, they don"t ask for much, they are okay with the little they have, and if for whatever reason one of the family member s.e.x hibit any form of greed, they ask if such isn"t one of the family, because the family isn"t known for such things.
Why Contentment?
I have since discovered two very incontestable facts concerning this topic. Number one: you can actually not have much and be very happy. Number two: it is completely erroneous to confuse contentment with lack.
Until someone can be in a position to take as much as can be taken, but yet refuses to because of an undiluted spirit of contentment the person can"t be said to be contented. Looking at these two facts on contentment, you will realise that contentment is a way of life, it is something you get used to over a period of time, it is an outcome of a set of principles you adhere to daily. Contentment saves you a lot of issues and heartaches, it makes you even very powerful, once people know you will always be fine with what you have they will look at you differently, because they know your conscience can"t be bought.
People have asked many times how one can have little and yet be happy? It is very possible, but it goes beyond human comprehension, because the world is filled with fast cars, beautiful edifices, jewelleries, designer clothes and shoes, so many things that will likely never want to make you have enough money since you need more money to acquire these things. What contentment teaches you in the first instance is that you can never have enough of these things, the more you work to acquire these things, the more you want more, and you will never have enough because the manufacturers and promoters of luxury items seem to have a way to come up with new ideas and products to keep you stuck and wanting more of what they have to offer.
Therefore, what you first of all must learn is the habit of being satisfied with what you can afford and not what you wished you had. Secondly, contentment teaches you to focus more on your needs than your wants, many of the things we fight so hard to acquire we don"t need them, it is just a craving borne out of peer pressure or societal pressure. This we must always understand.
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Many times we buy shoes and clothes we don"t get to wear for months, I see this happen all the time, there"s a program in my church called the Tabitha tent, this program offers the comfortable people in the church the opportunity to share with everyone certain household items or personal belongings they don"t have any need for any longer, you will be shocked at the kind of items you will find on display: new clothes, almost new shoes, pressing iron, micro wave machine, toaster etc. This will tell you moreandmoreabouttheacquisitivenatureofhumans. We love to own so many things for the sake of having them, it gives a false feeling of satisfaction when the real feeling of satisfaction lies in being contented at all times.
Learning to become contented has to be a deliberate effort, it has to be something you desire, it doesn"t just cling unto you like a leech, you must work at it daily. A lot of people are confused about contentment because they always a.s.sume that you have to be poor or merely comfortable to be truly contented from within. I say a big NO, many rich people are contented and they even exhibit its attributes more than the so called poor if you compare resources available to both cla.s.ses and look at what they spend money or their resources on. Let"s spend a little time to a.n.a.lyse this a bit further, so you can know how easy it is to erroneously confuse lack with contentment.
In any nation in the world there are three main categories of social cla.s.s: the upper cla.s.s, the middle cla.s.s and the lower cla.s.s. The upper cla.s.s consists of the powerful people who control the industries and the wealth of the society. The middle cla.s.s consists of the professional workers, the small business owners and the low level managers, while the lower cla.s.s consists of low income earners.
In each of these three categories of people you will find people who are contented through and through. Especially amongst the rich, there are several people who are okay with so little so much that any form of excess is given out immediately. Not every rich man is greedy or acquisitive in nature, it will be very wrong to think like that. Examples of very contented rich men in the world are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Aliko Dangote. They exist with what they have and give so much to charity. Its written all over them, they preach it, they act it. Whatever you see on them or around them that you a.s.sume can be termed extravagance are actually tools that advance their business interests. If you compare their lifestyle to that of people who don"t even have half of what they have at their disposal then you will realise how contented they are.
What most of their critics get confused about is if truly they are contented within, then why do they have so much in their bank accounts and yet they still appear to want more? They don"t want more money primarily in my opinion, they only continue to fulfill their long held dreams which most of you do not know of except them, but the thing with greatness is it comes with a commensurable measure of wealth, so I believe they aren"t acquisitive in nature, rather they are on a mission. This is something a lot of people need to understand about most wealthy people.
Unfortunately, amongst the middle cla.s.s, there are many people who live above their means, who swim in debts because they just can"t plug the waste through contentment, amongst the lower cla.s.s you also find many who aren"t contented with what they have, they turn to crime to live the kind of life they dream of.
In it all, the lesson I will want you to hold on firmly to is that you will live a peaceful life when you are guided by certain principles as to how you live, you are better off with the little but most important things of life rather than gathering things you don"t need. Again do not confuse lack with contentment, do not also think contentment is a function of how much resources you have access to, many are very wealthy and yet contented, whilst many are poor and acquisitive in nature or even very greedy.
The state of being satisfied or fulfilled regardless of material possessions at hand is a personal thing and it has nothing to do with the resources available to you.