A content society isn't motivated to over produce and
exploit resources. It isn't as aggressive and it is difficult
to manipulate.
Those are some of the reasons to link contentment with
earth care. If we look at community, culture, crime, and
human interchanges the role of contentment grows in
importance. At the individual level it is the motivation
behind most people actions. Who doesn't want contented
people? Competitive economic systems and a few manipulative
politicians to name a few.
All this indicates being ecological and responsible
needs contentment to stay motivated and to act with
compassion.
Here are some ideas to increase contentment.
1. Statistics prove contact with the media is
depressing. The constant messages say buy,
you are important, listen but don't think.
Not being able to respond and only listening
builds a passive repressed frustration.
Simply turning off the TV is a start, but all
advertising needs to be carefully controlled.
We need to think our own thoughts.
2. Connecting back to nature and simple pleasures
provides a stable base. This help counter
the constant messages that money buys
happiness.
3. Developing a belief system also gives one a
basis for evaluation. Having an opinion
about what is happiness and what things
are depressing is also important.
4. Diet, drugs, and our choice of pleasures
have a big impact on how we feel about
ourselves. Our ability to exercise some
level of control over these things builds
confidence and feeling of self importance.
Here are some quotes which help define contentment:
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they
try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more
of what they want so they will be happier. The way it
actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you
really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have
what you want. -- Margaret Young
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise
grows it under his feet. -James Oppenheimer
Pleasure is an event Happiness is an attitude.
Happiness is as a butterfly which when pursued is always
beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly
may alight upon you. --Nathaniel Hawthorne
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do
not necessarily require happiness. -- William Saroyan
An unhappy crew makes for a dangerous voyage.
If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty
good time.
It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty
and wealth have both failed. Kin Hubbard
Your Future is just your Past waiting to happen. "Now
Here" or "No Where"? Your Choice.
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and
happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't
mean they've gotten lost. --H. Jackson Browne, P. S. I
Love You
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of
traveling. --Margaret Lee Runbeck
To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather
than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be
worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study
hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to
stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to
bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry
never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and
unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my
symphony. --William Henry Channing
cheers jeff (please pass this on to a friend)
