Contentment: The Ultimate Virtue

Every day, I see groups of humans blame others for world problems such as injustice, homelessness, climate change, wars, tyranny, etc., all rooted in greed and excesses of the human race. I believe “excess” and “greed” cannot be legislated with laws or managed with prisons or fines. The ultimate human virtue that can do away with “excess” is contentment.

Contentment is the real solution to many of the human-caused crises because we are blessed but also CURSED with our LIMIT-LESS nature! You don't need to read my books (about hormones and neuropeptides driving our bad habits) to know that we are all prone to seeking excess (addiction) that precedes or follows by deficits (depression). This high maintenance emotional roller coaster of life, fueled by our “perceived” needs, can only stop when we practice contentment.

Contentment starts with occasionally walking away from income and power, or what I call “Yes, I can [make or spend that much money], but I will not!.” Once we feel the joy of contentment and practicing our “free will” by slowing down, it will open our eyes to see how unnecessary our short-sighted ventures, anxieties, acts/masks, and costly (high maintenance) needs are. Needs which often push us into self-delusional, limitless pursuits of "numbers" and “Scales.” Most people now equate “quantity” of life with its “quality” (reflected in health, balance, joy, resilience, peace and happiness).

Our self-delusions are mainly driven by our strong egos, which unless tamed, are fed by our past complexes (as I shared in my articles and books). In some languages, the word "complex" translates to a "tight knot", the sign of bad knitting. Unless we get rid of these past knots in our soul and energy fields, we are driven by "perseverative" algorithms, not by our own conscious ones (free will). Being overly competitive and limitless, will make the “fabric” of our lives look like elaborate, gaudy, thick, expensive but deformed, ugly, fragile, non-harmonious, without a joyful SOUL.

Remember pleasure/fun is not the same as joy. There are two separate neuroendocrine pathways to pleasure/fun and joy in our brain and body. One is timed (dopamine/fun), the other one is timeless (serotonin, joy). 13th century Mystic Persian poet Molavi (Rumi) says:

"The soul which, all day long, is trampled with the heavy concerns, .. of profit and loss, and the fear of scaling down (decline).. will be left with no kindness, joy, vitality or dignity, neither with a path to transcend up to the heavenly bliss."

جان همه روز از لگدکوب خیال ** وز زیان و سود وز خوف زوال‌‌. . نی صفا می‌‌ماندش نی لطف و فر ** نی به سوی آسمان راه سفر

My other related articles:

Are Fires Nature's Equalizers in a Denatured California? Did George Marsh Predict this in 1864?

History of Politics and Power: Pope Innocent VIII's Illegitimate Children and Relations with Bankers