Wisdom and Sanity Lead to Contentment

Perhaps the pursuit of happiness should be replaced by the pursuit of contentment.

Me, in my San Diego dancing days in about 2008. I still had a long way to go towards contentment! Own photo.

For those who have had the luxury of fleeting moments of happiness, I’m sure they will know that happiness comes and goes. It pops up in surprising moments, unexpected and uplifting. The pursuit of it, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to make it come any closer. Rather, that pursuit is often fraught with despair, anxiety, and frustration. So I have a better idea.

Can’t we replace the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of contentment?

Elements of contentment

Contentment, like happiness, is a feeling. However, whereas happiness springs up in moments and can last for a while, it often departs when life gets complicated, and it seems to be solely dependent on events. Contentment, on the other hand, is a feeling of satisfaction that is deep-rooted within oneself, and it has more to do with one’s view of life and oneself than on any external events.

I would say that the two components of contentment are sanity and wisdom. Each element also comprises other elements. Sanity is the more difficult of the two to define, so let’s start there.

Sanity demands that the mind is in charge of the emotions — in other words, emotions and feelings don’t dominate decision making. Sanity is the ability to accurately assess people and events. Wisdom is the ability to accurately depict future outcomes, and it therefore enables people to make better decisions. Clearly, unless people and events are accurately assessed, it is impossible to accurately determine outcomes.

While I realize that there is a strong ethos these days that feelings are more accurate than thought, it simply isn’t true. Feelings will not supply the answer to a math equation — thought will. Feelings will not determine whether someone is guilty of murder or not — evidence will. Feelings will not enable one to keep a clear head continually — thought will.

I also realize that in terms of psychological assessment, these days sanity (mental illness) is determined by one’s feelings. However, this is fairly new to the industry. It used to be whether one was making decisions based on reality. For…