Contentment is...

People often mistakenly strive for happiness. Happiness is a fleeting jubilation. Happiness is the by product of getting together with friends, laughing with the kids, indulging in a pleasure. Contentment is something more precious. To use the Wikipedia definition (kids, don't do that at home...or for homework!) 'Contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease in one's situation, body and mind.' Contentment is the happiness of satisfaction. 


It's the easy smile in a crowd strangers.
It's the approving smile in the mirror when trying on clothes.
It's the involuntary smile at sunrise or sunset.
It's laughter in the eyes.
Grinning at a friendly text message.






Contentment is not after more. Contentment appreciates what is, no matter if it's not perfect, if it's not as good as someone else's. Contentment is focused, not comparing. 

Contentment seeks out small joys and pleasures daily, thoughout the obligations and routine of life. It may be the flowers on the street as you walk to school, it may be the blue sky out the window. It's acknowledgment of what you have and who you are.

As I pointed out in this post on happiness, contentment is the joy found in the inconsequential moments of life. Of which there are so many more, than the extreme highs and lows. Satisfaction in the mundane and unimportant.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote of his Uncle Alex, who would stop the conversation when they were drinking lemonade under the tree on a sunny afternoon and muse "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is". And Vonnegut concludes, in A Man without a Country: "And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'"

Linking with  #HappyNow

“In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.” ― Eckhart Tolle

In today's world, we get very caught up in drama. Drama often in our head. What people have, what we must do, where we must be. We spend time thinking about tomorrow or getting from A to B that we lose focus on what's important. Where we are right now.


Many years ago, someone selected Buddhism for Mothers of School Children. This is not something I would normally read, and there was a lot I could pick apart, but in the spirit of the text, I thought I'd try it out with the school lunches. For some reason making the school lunches was a real mood trigger for me. I'd get so irritated, and the joy sucked out of me over this small detail everyday. Given that I merrily packed lunches for day trips in the school holidays, I knew, as Jack Sparrow would say, that 'the problem isn't the problem, my attitude to the problem is the problem'. Focusing a little more on my attitude and the task at hand, did change the process a little.

Many years later I went to a Black Dog talk on how to recognise depression and one of the tips to help people was to get them to focus on the present. By taking in the immediate surroundings, it closed out the ruminating on the future. I like to take photos on the dog walks, and I have found it's made me literally zoom in my focus on my surroundings - on the light on the buildings, a flower in the garden, bees in the bushes and so forth. It is a quiet and peaceful time, even though the cars roar past up the main road.

I am not a particularly spiritual or zen person, but I am pretty happy. So I will leave you with a quote that I love, and is the clearest reminder of how to be mindful. In A Man without a Country, the brilliant Kurt Vonnegut says “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” By recognising when you are happy, and highlighting the appreciation of the moment in your mind or with others, you quickly build up a bank of these moments, and realise they far outweigh the others.

Linking with #FloralFridayFoto and #FridayBliss

Happiness is....

For those that have been reading me with any regularity, you will know half my world view comes from an intellectual crush on Messrs. Vonnegut and Bradbury. In the case of Happiness, Kurt Vonnegut sums it up perfectly. In the book, A Man Without A Country, he tells of his Uncle Alex who would interrupt them when they were all sitting around laughing and remark 'If this isn't happiness, I don't know what is.' By underlining the moment as it happened, you're highlighting the appreciation of a moment of happiness for everyone present. Bookmarking it, if you will.

I think it's human nature to enjoy the moment but not 'collect' it in our store of emotions. We remember the terrible slight and drama filled incidents, ready to recall them at a moments notice, but forget the daily moments where happiness is the reigning emotion - walking down a flower filled street on a sunny day, laughing with a friend over something inconsequential, watching a movie in cool air-conditioned darkness and so on. We don't see them as important enough to matter.

That's the trick to life, however. It's ALL important. The mundane is probably more important than the big events, because that's what we squander the most time on. In a way, laughing in the car on the school drop off is more valuable than the big birthday dinner or even a wedding...we spend a lot more of our life doing one than the other.

Happiness is a day at the beach.
Happiness is a swim.
Happiness is laughing with friends.
Happiness is smelling flowers.
Happiness is buying a new book.
Happiness is finding time to read.
Happiness is dancing. Anywhere.
Happiness is first cup of coffee in the morning.
The list goes on endlessly.

For the next week, when you're happy, pause and take a moment to acknowledge it. See if your mood lightens when you realise how happy you actually are most of the time. Start building that bank of happy moments.

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" Vonnegut.

Fill in the blank. Happiness is....

Linking with 

7 words

I've written before about my love for Kurt Vonnegut. I am amazed you can live through what he did and come out the other side a 'humanist' of such kind and generous proportions.

I won't repeat what I discussed in the Unusual Discourse on Love, but I was struck with the simplicity and remarkable truth of this quote, that I wanted to share again. In Jailbird, he says that a friend summed up what he's written several books about into seven words "Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail"

In all your interactions, but especially with those closest to you, treat them with the courtesy you would a stranger.

It's a very simple truth and yet more often than not, we treat the ones closest to us with the most indifference and ill-mannered emotion. We are careless with those we love most, for want of a better word.

See if that extra kindness makes a difference, and as you go about your day, make all your interactions make the other person's day a little brighter, from the barista to your husband (and especially your button pushing teen!!).

And so it goes.

Linking up with #BooknificentThursdays 

Unusual Discourse on Love

I'm not entirely sure where I'm heading with this post, or if I even agree with what I'm about to write, but both quotes were enough to make me pause and give some thought to the ideas, so I thought I'd share.

I am reading Slapstick by the wonderful Kurt Vonnegut and came across this: (Note to put it in context, the children have only ever had contact with books, not the outside world.)

"'Eliza..so many of the books I've read...said that love was the most important thing of all. Maybe I should tell you that I love you now.'
'Go ahead' she said.
'I love you, Eliza,' I said.
She thought about it. 'No,' she said at last, 'I don't like it.'
'Why not?' I said.
'It's as though you were pointing a gun at my head,' she said. 'It's just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don't mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but, "I love you, too"?' "*

Now while I believe you do sometimes say it because you are bursting with affection at a particular moment, and you say it to kids without an expectation of reciprocation, I will admit, somewhat embarrassingly, I have in the past said it because I needed to hear it back (usually when I was feeling sick and sorry for myself!!). It is an interesting point, that it is virtually impossible for anyone not to say it back, thus rendering the sentiment almost useless. Which is why it means so much more when it comes at unexpected times, or in a note left on the kitchen bench or some such fashion.

I find it interesting that I think we say it to kids because we want them to know it, to feel protected in the safety of our love, with no expectation of the same in return. Do we do that with our partners? Or does it become a just habit, that throw away 'love you' at the end of a phone call or a manipulation for our own benefit? I'd be interested in what others think on this. I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment, but I haven't had an opportunity to experiment with my feelings and thought processes since reading the paragraph...And so it goes. Hi ho.

The other thought, was on the nature of love. "I have had some experiences with love, or think I have, anyway, although the ones I have liked best could easily be described as 'common decency'. I treated somebody well for a little while, or maybe even a tremendously long time, and that person treated me well in turn....Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous.
I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please - a little less love, and a little more common decency.'"**

Now I do believe in love, and I do believe it can grow and last long periods of time. However, I also look at long marriages, or close knit families and see the truth in the common decency idea. Love can often take people for granted, or be careless or demanding. Common decency is always respectful. I'd love to know if anyone has any other thoughts to add on this.
Hi ho.

Linking up with #lifethiseek with a rather unusual post for me on love.

For anyone who hasn't read Vonnegut, start with Slaughter House 5 and then A Man Without a Country. I love Vonnegut - he's an underrated brilliant writer. And so it goes.


*page 76, Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut, Vintage 2008, London (copyright 1976)
**page 2, ibid.