The late afternoon sun beamed in warm and bright as my three children played happily on the floor. They were getting along nicely as they built a winding track for Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. It was an ideal moment, but I was miserable.

As my children played, I sulked on the couch, lamenting that I could not enjoy this time. I couldn’t be happy because I was on call for surgery. The hospital could call me at any moment, and that knowledge hung over me like the sword of Damocles. It felt unfair to me. Other people don’t have to be on call on Sunday. It shouldn’t be like this.

I was miserable amid a perfect opportunity to be with my children because I was convinced circumstances needed to be different. I thought I needed something more to be happy, but what I needed wasn’t more. What I needed was less. I needed to give up the three things keeping me from being content and enjoying the moment.“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”

— Socrates

Happiness is overrated. Why? Simple, you can’t maintain it. That giddy feeling is great while it lasts. But that’s the problem; it doesn’t last. That is why you need to move your focus to contentment.

Contentment is sustainable. Contentment means knowing you have enough and that you are enough. Knowing that although everything at this moment may not be perfect, you can be ok with that.

Contentment can be yours today. Unlike happiness, you don’t need anything external to occur to achieve contentment. Instead, you need to let go of three beliefs that keep you from being content right here and right now. Arrest these three thieves, and you can experience contentment starting today.

The Three Thieves of Contentment

To be happy, we need an external good to occur. Happiness is an emotion that we experience when something happens that makes us happy. Contentment is an internal state. We don’t need anything to occur to us to be content. Instead, we need to change our inner state to allow us to experience the contentment that is already within us. To do that, we need to let go of three things that block our being content; the desire for more, comparison, and the belief that things must somehow be different.

The Desire for More, Better, or Someday

The statement that precludes you from being content is, “When I get ______, then I will be happy.” It shows your belief that you need something outside of yourself to feel fulfilled. You can fill in the blank with money, promotion, love, car, house, and on and on. And that is the real problem; the list of things that can fill in that blank is endless. No matter how much you have, there will always be something more you think you need.

Don’t believe me? Take a walk through your house and look at all you have. Reflect on all your successes in life. Think about all the friends and family around you. Everything that you have today is something that you once believed you absolutely must have to be happy. Yet, the odds are, you take these things for granted today and dream of what you want to have in the future.

The problem with more is that it is like a drug. If I give you $100, it will make you happy, but for how long? Soon enough, you’ll have spent that money and the happiness the windfall brought. You will be looking for the next good thing to happen to make you happy for another brief, shiny moment. Wouldn’t it be better if you could appreciate what you own and be content with the life you have?

“To be content doesn’t mean you don’t desire more, it means you’re thankful for what you have and patient for what’s to come.” — Tony Gaskins

Contentment is about enough. It is the recognition that you are enough, just the way you are — the understanding that you don’t need to be anything more or have anything better. Contentment is the knowledge that who you are and what you have is enough. It is a very liberating insight.

How to Defeat the More Thief:

Count your blessings. Contentment comes to those who appreciate what they have. Take stock of all the good that surrounds you. I look at my home, which is smaller and less fancy than many of my colleges. Then I remember the first home my wife and I shared. It was a tiny cinderblock apartment. Uninsulated, it was freezing in the winter. In the summer, moisture condensed on the hard, concrete floor, causing the carpet to grow moldy. I think about how far I have come, and I am content.

Remind yourself that everything you have today was once only a dream. Try to appreciate those blessings as the younger version of you would do. Then be content to know that what you already have is enough.

“Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.” — Bilal Zahoor

The Comparison to Others

On a trip from Colorado to Disneyland in LA, I drove my family down the Las Vegas strip. I let my children marvel at the opulent casinos and their enticing displays. At lunch, I asked them where they thought the casinos got their money. Of course, the answer is all the cash people lost gambling in the casinos. The players may hope to strike it rich, but the casinos stacked the rules in the house’s favor. In the end, the players lose. My final lesson for my children was, “When the game is rigged against you, the only way to win is not to play.”

The comparison game is also a game rigged to ensure you lose. You can stand in your driveway and look at one neighbor who has a bigger house, another keeps a better car in the garage, and the third has a swimming pool. Compare yourself to any one of these neighbors, and you lose. That is ok because when your neighbors compare themselves to you, they also fail in some way. There is no avoiding the fact that we will always come out the loser when comparing ourselves to others. Everyone is better than you somehow, but you are also better than everyone else in some other way.

Like gambling in Las Vegas, if you play the comparison game, you will lose. The only way to win is not to play. Besides, even if you did get a better car than all your neighbors, it would only be a matter of time before one of them upgrades, and then where will you be. There is no winning in the comparison game because the goal post is constantly moving away from you. The only way to win is not to play.

“It’s almost impossible to be satisfied in your own life if you’re constantly looking at what someone else has.”

— Rachael Cruze

How to Defeat the Comparison Thief:

Ask yourself if you are willing to pay the price to have what someone else has. Do you want the higher mortgage payment that goes along with a bigger house? Do you want to spend hours a week cleaning and caring for the swimming pool? Would you be willing to put in the overtime hours that a promotion would require?

Be sure when you compare your situation to someone else’s that you are looking at the complete picture. It’s easy to focus on the upside, but don’t forget to factor in the hidden cost. All those things that look so enticing carry a cost of their own. Be sure you are willing to pay that hidden fee before you go lusting after what someone else has. Sure, a fancy new car would be nice, but continuing to drive my fourteen-year-old minivan means I have the money to take my family on trips. I would not give up those experiences for a new car payment.

“Contentment makes poor men rich, discontent makes rich men poor.” — Benjamin Franklin

The Belief That Things Need to Be Different

The belief that things must be different before you can be happy holds you back from being content. The world is not a perfect place. Your life is not perfect either. And neither of those things ever will be perfect. The expectation of perfection is unrealistic, and the pursuit of unrealistic goals is doomed to fail and rob you of your peace of mind. The belief that you can’t be happy until things are as you think they should be is the third thief of contentment.

Contentment comes from accepting things as they are. This does not mean putting on rose-colored glasses and assuming we live in the “best of all possible worlds.” We need to be attentive to the imperfections in our world. Rather than making ourselves miserable by battling against them, we need to learn to accept things as they are. This is not the same as approving of them. What we resist tends to persist. Once we accept things as they are, we can see them accurately, understand them, and effectively change them.

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” — Dalai Lama XIV

How to Defeat the Thief of Things Needing to Be Different:

The idea of accepting things that need changing has been a challenging idea for me. So let me try an example. I hate myself for gorging on cookies at work. But hating myself for doing something I knew was wrong didn’t change my behavior. When I accepted this failure in myself, I gained a valuable insight. I learned that I tend to overeat sweats when I am on call, working into the night, and on weekends. It is not hunger I am feeling at those times, but the loneliness of being estranged from my family. Accepting my failure gave me insight into the problem that made it possible for me to change.

It is a paradox, but when we accept what is — just as it is — only then can we make changes. Acceptance does not imply approval. It is a way of coming to peace with what could be better. Then when we act from a place of peace and patience, we can achieve meaningful and lasting change. Acceptance must come first.

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”— Joseph Campbell

That day on the couch in the sun with my three children playing contentedly before me, I realized something. No, the circumstances were not perfect. Yes, I could be interrupted any second, but I wasn’t being interrupted at that moment. At that moment, everything was good. Not perfect, but good enough. I realized that I could enjoy the time I had if I just quit ruminating on how it could be better.

I slid down off the couch and joined my children on the floor. They were thrilled to have Daddy join their game, and we worked for an hour to construct an elaborate world for Thomas and his friends. As we played, I became absorbed in the experience and forgot about being on call. I lost myself in the moment, and in that moment, everything was good enough. I was content.

Conclusion

To be content is the true path to lasting happiness. To be happy, don’t pursue happiness. Instead, come to accept that what you have and who you are is enough — not perfect, but good enough. You will never have everything you want. Your world will never be perfect.

But if you can learn to accept things as they are and enjoy what you have, you can open the door to a more satisfying experience. Contentment can be yours today. You don’t need to add anything to your life. Instead, the path to a more content life is via removing the desire for more, comparison to others, and the belief that things should be different.

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” — Lao Tzu