Perfection Vs. Contentment

Content you shall be, they say, the mandarins of the world, to be full with less than full, to be stable at less than ideal. When a dream departs down the drain, “be content”, they cry.

We all have our wants, the very wants that create an imbalance in our system, letting us perceive a state of being where we are less than what we must be, or want to be. The aspired state of being could be ideal, or practical, this being contingent to our attitudes. The satisfaction of these goals would lead to happiness, and getting less than the ideal would lead to us giving in to contentment, that state where we know we don’t have the best and yet prefer to be happy, or it would seem.

Where is happiness without perfection and its balance? There are no shortcuts to good things. Where there are shortcuts, there is no permanence. Hugh Prather said “Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition”. If happiness were a present attitude, then can it be motivated and cultivated by our externalities? No, attitudes determine our wants and our means to satisfy them.

Rather, happiness is a state of being, there for a moment, before another want takes to a higher or another plane of wanting and effort. Another imbalance has to be reckoned with, and this has to be encountered and satisfied. Yes, achieving a balance is a prerequisite to happiness, and also a precondition.

So, we will run behind an ideal state. When I say an ideal state, I am relegating success as something that exists on paper like a 100% efficient engine. Yes, permanent happiness will be ideal till there are wants, till we crave for something and are willing to pay a price for it. This they call Nirvana.

Everything else is a compromise, damnation to mankind to hide his shortcoming in achieving perfection. Who taught us to be content with what we are and what we have? We prefer to take the easy way, the path of least resistance, in our fear of change. Cloistered within our limitations, not venturing to be anything greater than being merely a part of perfection.

Perfection. This, I think, is the God’s way.