An Observation On Life... Being Content

Sometimes I look at life and look at all the people running around with their lives, as if chickens with their heads cut off, and I just wonder if they even have a clue? I look at the news, and the talk shows and the self-help channels and I see how they're always talking about staying positive or being happy. I look at this, and I wonder if they know that, that's a dangerous game they're playing with human emotion? While staying positive and staying happy is a pleasant idea, it's hardly a goal or a concept that one could ever really hope to achieve on our plane of existence. On this, the dangerous side of always trying to be happy, is that it implies that we're all negative or that somehow the idea of happiness is better than any other human emotion. However, the goal of happiness is not something a human being can achieve by exercising an idea or physical program or artificial substance; it can only be achieved in what I like to call "the art of being content."

There is not enough glory bestowed upon people who are content in western society. We prefer to look at those individuals who are always trying to achieve impossible goals and we glorify them for their victories and sometimes for their failures, but will that one moment in their lives define them and bring them happiness? I often think that those people would feel empty after a defining moment, a "what now?" type of feeling. Then, there are those who chase happiness through drink, drugs, or sex and claim they've found the answer, but have they? No, I've found that the key to one's happiness is just being true to yourself, to stop trying to achieve what "others" would have you do or what "society" demands of you. Life is life and none are the same, and not one person has a clue in how you should lead your own. I think that if people would learn to slow down, they would find that their soul would speak to them and they would see that they really are truly happy. Happiness can not be defined or put to a comparison of someone else's life, it's just an idea. Contentment of one's self is happiness, and you'll find that if you learn to be content, happiness finds you.

- Nicholas Dunn