A little jolt of happiness

Chapter 82

Life is pretty full right now, I find myself running wide open from 6 am until 9 pm each day and then falling down into a deep exhausted sleep at the end of the day. It is amazingly content-giving way to live at the moment. Fairly sure that I can’t continue this pace for very long, nor should I, but it has this unique contentment about it. Contentment is way better than happiness, way deeper and way more satisfying.

Yet I find most people are searching for happy here in America and elsewhere.  They spend lavish amounts of money for stuff they don’t need and won’t use to feel happy. They literally shop all the time to get a little jolt of happiness. They buy new cars, and new clothes and new houses. All for a little jolt of happy. They are looking for relationships to make them happy. They are searching for the perfect soul mate that will make them happy. They and we are willing to pay outlandish prices financially and emotionally to have a little jolt of happy. I keep calling it a little jolt, because that is about how long it lasts.

Contentment on the other hand is more invasive in the best way. It permeates all the other pieces of life. No, it doesn’t make problems go away, but it can and often is a great buffer to the most difficult parts of life and daily processes.  Contentment is being satisfied with what is at the moment, and not wanting more. More nuanced than it sounds in that sentence, but as an old Hasidic proverbs states, when we pursue the little jolt of happiness, we flee from contentment.