The Cure for Discontentment: Use It

Reposted from http://seeinggood.com/the-cure-for-discontentment-use-it/

In my unemployment I’ve become a bit of an Internet addict. Between Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg, my blog, and the fifty others in my Google Reader, I could easily fill an entire work week seeking and sharing information. As I’ve trolled the net these past couple months, I’ve realized the digital era feeds into the collective discontent that defines us as a nation—this idea that no matter what heights we reach, there is still something missing. 10 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power; 15 Ways to Shrink Your Waistline; 20 Ideas to Make More Money—these posts just remind us we can always be smarter, thinner, stronger, richer, happier, or just plain better than we are now.

Yesterday I found a post on Zen Habits—one of my favorite blogs—that addresses this very issue. Leo offers several cures for discontentment, including:

1. Change your attitude and perspective.

2. Take some kind of positive action.

3. Do something that gives you meaning.

I think the first is the most useful suggestion, but not for the reason you may imagine. Perhaps our discontent isn’t something to be cured but rather something to be accepted, appreciated, and leveraged.

I’m not suggesting we should accept unhappiness as the norm—just that we need to acknowledge the factors that encourage discontent and realize they aren’t going anywhere. Our society breeds dissatisfaction because it feeds the consumer machine. We don’t live in Bhutan—a nation that measures its success in gross national happiness. We live in a place where every day someone creates a revolutionary diet, publishes a ground-breaking self-help book, and creates a newer, more exciting technology that promises to simplify our lives.

We’re constantly inundated with advertising messages that imply happiness is just a face cream, cocktail, or gadget away. According to Juliette Schor, Boston College Professor of Sociology and author of Born to Buy, we’re programmed to accept the connection between consumption and happiness when we see advertising as children—at a time when we’re incapable of rational thinking. My point: dissatisfaction is rooted in our culture. Hell, it’s part of the human condition: the never-ending pursuit of meaning and answers to why we’re here. While we may find respite from our searching through meditation, selfless giving, and appreciation for what we have, odds are we will never fully relinquish the tendency to look for something more.

That doesn’t have to be such a bleak realization. One of my favorite quotes (anonymous) is “Always be happy, but never be satisfied.” It didn’t resonate with me at first because I didn’t recognize the distinction. But there is one. Unhappiness creates emptiness. Dissatisfaction breeds progress. I believe in acknowledging the factors that encourage discontentment, we can learn to identify the difference between enough and lacking in our lives—and then leverage our discontent for positive change.

If you dislike that your excess weight affects your quality of life, you may start a new exercise regime and become stronger for you and your family. If you’re dissatisfied with the practices in your business, you could innovate and come up with a more efficient, streamlined process. If you’re unhappy with your mother’s experience fighting cancer, you might raise funds to support treatments that ease the side effects of chemo. If you’re frustrated with our government’s policies, you just may run for office and fill a nation with hope for change in a time when it couldn’t be more indispensable. Discontent is only dangerous if you turn it against yourself instead of letting it empower you.

If that’s what you tend to do—if you are, in fact, persistently unhappy—I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t think anyone can offer a complete recipe for happiness in a blog post (or even a book for that matter). But I can offer you a piece of insight that helps me when I start looking for more: if there’s something that’s bothering you that you can control, address it. At the same time, ask yourself this question: can I still enjoy this moment, even though there are things I’d like to change?

What do you think? Should we pursue cures for discontent? Is it possible or advisable to become permanently satisfied?

By Lori Deschene, Photo Romancement

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Lori Deschene is a San Francisco-based writer and editor. Visit her blog about positive thinking at seeinggood.com.

Tags: internet, multitasking, present moment, psychology, zen