Enlightenment, meet Laziness

One of the things I have always found to be hard to do is be content. When I say "content" what do you think about?

I'm guessing everyone will say that content means being happy with what you have and wanting nothing more, and that is true for the most part. But wait a minute. If someone is truly content and wanted nothing more, why would they do anything at all? Why not just say, "No thanks, I am not going to go for that promotion." or "I know that I tend to live outside the present moment, but I am not going to work on training my mind at all" because you are content with what you have?

Or worse, what if a person says, "My family is barely scraping by and that's enough for me. I'm going to just chill and do nothing."

Or even worse, "I know my house is a mess and there is garbage all over the place, but I'm content with that and do not see the need to clean it up."

What if you just wind up being unemployed and sitting on a couch all day because you are content? Is that something "spiritual"?

The answer is no.

The Dalai Lama says, "Do not confuse contentment with complacency." in his book "The Art of Happiness at Work".

Contentment is a feeling that exists in the Present Moment. If you are present, and you are paying attention to that underlying Oneness or Consciousness in the background of everything, you can feel content. You can even rationalize contentment by looking at all the "good" things you have or have achieved. Contentment is a form of Acceptance, and Acceptance is one manifestation that Consciousness can take in the Present. According to Eckhart Tolle, the other two are Enthusiasm and Enjoyment.

However, even when you are content, there is still an unexplainable current that pulls your mind forward in time. In the realm of time, PEOPLE DO THINGS. They just do. Most of the time, they do things driven by their egos and animal selves, but even if the ego could be eliminated completely, people would still do things because that's what people do in the realm of time! Things!

Complacency is ignoring the simple functional fact that people do things. You can picture time like the current of a river. You are swimming in that river. That really leaves you two choices if you are going to stay in the river: you can let the current carry you, or you can swim against the current. People who are complacent are swimming against the river. People who are content let the river carry them wherever it may, and they are trusting of the process that pulls them along.

So should you get that better job? Should you feed your family filet mignon instead of ground chuck? Should you vacuum your house today?

The answer is yes.

The caveat is that as you do those things, make sure you do them for the simple fact that this is what people do, rather than getting your identity mixed up in those things which causes your ego to trap you.