On being content
Contentment is mostly a state of mind
The empty suitcase
Early in my business career, I had an unscheduled, lengthy layover at an airport. It was there that I met a woman, the CEO of a mid-sized tech company. She was well-dressed, carried a sleek laptop, and spoke with the confident air of someone accustomed to success.
We had a few hours to kill, so we headed up to the lounge and had a couple of drinks. As we relaxed, our conversation hopped aimlessly from topic to topic and, at one point, got to our personal lives. It was then that I noticed a subtle unease creeping into her otherwise confident demeanour. She confessed, almost apologetically, that despite her accomplishments—the high-paying job, the luxurious home, the social standing—she felt a nagging sense of emptiness.
"It's like I'm carrying an empty suitcase," she said, gesturing to her carry-on. "Everything I thought would fill in it just... doesn't." She paused, looking out at the planes taking off, "I keep thinking the next deal, the next promotion, the next big thing will finally do it. But it never does."
Her story, though personal, is not unique. It reflects a common human experience: pursuing happiness through external achievements only to find that those achievements fail to deliver lasting contentment. This may sound strange at first, but it is not unusual for people to have everything they thought they needed to be content and yet feel unfulfilled.
Filling the suitcase
Things such as money, prestige, and position can convince us that the way to be happy is to possess them. Those who don’t have money are convinced that having money is the way to happiness. Those who don’t command respect are convinced they will be happy when others start respecting them. Similarly, the powerless are convinced that the way to happiness is to gain power.
But people with money know that money does not make them happy, because they are not. People with prestige know that prestige does not make them happy, because they are not. People with status know that status does not make them happy, because they are not. Even people with all three wonder why they are not quite happy.
The nature of externals
In Stoicism, we call things like money, power, and prestige “externals.” These things are outside of us and are not always under our control. Externals can make us temporarily happy, but they are unstable by nature. Two things make them unreliable.
Externals are not under your control
Externals have strings attached to them. The strings are pulled by others or by circumstances. If you want that promotion, someone has to give it to you. If you want to make money in the stock market, the stocks you invest in need to go up. If you want to be happy with your family, they have to behave in a way that makes it happen. You don’t control externals. Other people and circumstances do.
Externals have moving targets
Suppose you are thirsty. You drink water, and once your thirst is quenched, you stop drinking. However, if you think a million dollars will make you happy and make a million dollars, you will be unlikely to stop there. You will keep going. You will see this even among billionaires. They keep going, striving to make even more money. Since your goal post keeps moving every time you reach it, you will always be discontented, no matter how mild the discontent.
Externals cannot make us happy because we are always at the mercy of circumstances and, even when we get what we want, we can’t be sure we won’t lose it. Even when we don’t lose it, we will fear losing it.
So what’s the Stoic solution?
1. Identifying the source of our discontent
Things we think we need to be happy do not add much to our lives. You could sit as comfortably on a fifty-dollar chair as you could on a five-hundred-dollar chair. You could reach your destination whether you drive a $9,000 car or a $90,000 car. A $40 shirt will protect you from the elements as well as a $400 shirt. Our preference for expensive things is a learned one.
Things like expensive furniture, high-end cars, and designer clothes can make us happy—for a short while. But soon enough, we will be looking to upgrade things we thought were upgrades when we first got them. All those things that made us happy when we first got them, not too long ago, do not appeal to us anymore.
How much do you need to be happy? Not much, said the Stoics.
You need very few things to be happy. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.67
Stoicism does not ask us not to buy expensive furniture, high-end cars, and designer clothes. You may be able to afford them and enjoy having them. But it would be a mistake to think you need those things to be happy.
You become increasingly discontented when you believe your happiness is tied to external things like money, position, prestige, or power. So, the first thing to realize about contentment is that it does not depend on how much stuff you have once your basic needs are met.
Our discontent is not the result of not having things but of thinking that our contentment depends on having things.
2. Understanding our focus on the gap
If you have a job that pays you $85,000, you don’t think you need a job that pays you $500,000 to be happy; you probably think that when you get to the salary level of $100,000, you’ll be happy. If you have a few hundred thousand dollars, you don’t think you need a billion dollars to be happy; you probably think a million dollars will make you happy. Our goals never seem too far-off but achievable. Because the goals always seem to be within reach, we constantly strive, never being content with what we have. Our focus is not on the $85,000 job we have but on the additional $15,000 we strive for. Our focus is not on the hundreds of thousands of dollars we already have but on the gap, when filled, that will make us millionaires. And yet, if we are unemployed or don’t have any savings, we would find a job that pays $85,000 and a few hundred dollars in savings very attractive. Our minds constantly create a gap between what we have and what we need to be content. This doesn’t stop no matter how much we have.
Don’t dream about things you don’t have. Instead, think about the best things you now have and how much you would crave them if you didn’t have them. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.27.
We need to remember that we have many things we didn’t have before. When we didn’t have them, we probably thought that we would be content when we had them. Now that we have them, our minds create a new gap, telling us that something else will make us happy. If we are not careful, this process will continue for the rest of our lives.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. - Epicurus
3. Appreciating that we have enough
If you are reading this, the chances are that you have enough to eat, can clothe yourself, have a roof over your head, have a job, can get one, or do not need one. Nothing stops you from getting more, but you can be content at any level once your basic needs are met. It is realizing that there are many “indifferents” in life such as travel, exotic food, prestigious jobs, material wealth, and possessions, that we might enjoy and our contentment in life is not dependent on any of them. It is realizing that, while they look like destinations you can get to, they are way stations pointing to more and more way stations.
Anyone who does not think that what they have is more than ample is an unhappy person, even if they are master of the whole world. - Epicurus
Takeaways
Discontent pervades our lives even when we have more than we need to be happy.
The source of our discontent is not a lack of things but our belief that we lack the things we need to be content.
We focus on the little we think we need rather than the lot we already have.
We need to understand that we have all we need to be content right now.
Try this simple exercise
Go back in time by several years, maybe to when you were a student. What did you dream of having that would make you happy—a home, a job, a spouse…?
How many of these things do you already have? Are you content with what you have?
If you are not quite content with what you have, list the things that will make you happy when you get them. Imagine you already have them all.
Go forward in time by ten years. Are you sure that you will never need anything more or are you thinking that maybe you should get to the next level?
Notice how your mind creates discontent no matter what you have.
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If only more Americans grasped that.
Great advice. It’s easy to chase stuff but it’s very beneficial to realize that you don’t need it in order to be content. I’m starting to be grateful for what I have and not what I want.