Today I had a discussion with someone who described themselves as content in their job, life & relationship status. Vaguely I remembered this same person complaining about these exact three things in prior weeks. With that being said I became curious and asked him to elaborate. He responded with something like – “Well I am ok with it all and I think I can live with that for a few years.” I began thinking… Is this really what being contentment actually was?
Being content, to me, means being at peace with the things you cannot change, striving for goals little by little, truly accepting the things you have been blessed with and finding a life that makes you happy – without searching for anything else. I could tell by the way this friend had disclosed that he was content wasn’t meaningful at all. I ask him if he was looking for more in life, if he wonders what else is out there in terms of growth and development. His response was, “always”. I ask him if he needed more to be truly happy and his response was, “yes”. With the matter of “fact-ness” of his answer I quickly realized that he was not content at all, but rather complacent. This began a whole conversation that led me to one simple question:
How do we become content without being becoming complacent. Complacency is a dangerous character. We start to accept thing (that don’t necessarily make us happy) that is just “good enough” instead of striving for more. We need to remind and pursue one question everyday. What is “good enough?” Understanding how you define good enough”, acceptance, and conformity will help you realize if you are content with your life or if you are being complacent in need of change.
For me – Contentment is not saying that you are good where you are, but rather saying that you accept where you are, know where you can move to and are willing to do the things you need to do to explore those opportunities…eventually. It may not all come at once, but you are ok with that. Contentment goes hand in hand with acceptance. Complacent people will become ok with where they are, accept where they are and conform to where they are without regards to a potential much fuller. Conformity goes hand in hand with complacency.
Moral of the story is – constantly pursue the question, “Am I truly happy”. True happiness will come with the realization that you are actually content. People often look at being content as a negative thing. It’s not. It is an acceptance and satisfaction with the opportunities given to you. Fear complacency because this will lead to an unfulfilled life. Once content, you will desire and yearn for nothing more than what you already have.
“While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.” – Proverb
esterday, while tweeting about my wedding I hash tagged “#weddingcountdown”. (I am getting married in 99 days.) Suddenly, my tweet was favorited by a company called BowTie Bags. BowTie Bags is a company who makes welcome bags for wedding receptions to hold favors, water, tissues, mints, whatever! Well of course I’m going to click on their account. First, because I want to see what this company is about and second, because what girl doesn’t like their honey in a bow tie? Then it dawned on me. Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t always thinking about marketing/advertising and PR. Brilliant marketing! Easy marketing. BowTie Bags did a Twitter search where they found everyone that tweeted the hashtag #weddingcountdown. This is turn led to new follows on their page and sparked curiosity with brides (maybe grooms, you know, because they help so much with a wedding) who are currently planning their wedding. So easy.
The Realtor needs to make sure that the house is listed on every real estate app that one can access. We missed out on a lot of houses because we were using Realtor.com only. Yes, it may have been our stupidity, but we assumed that all the listing sites generated from one another.
Natter Chatter 