3 Things to Consider for Contentful Life
I have met lots of people during the two decades that I have lived for but I have yet to meet a person who lives a trouble- and sorrow-free life. However, I have certainly met lots of people who have decided to be content with life despite all of the challenges that life throws at them. It is their attitude toward those challenges that allow them to live a contentful life. Incorporating the following three things in my life has certainly made me come closer to living a contentful life and I wish to share them with you.
It is important to realize that all the other emotions aside from happiness (e.g., anger, sadness, etc.) are just as important for one’s personal development. There is a deep philosophy about emotions in a 2015 animated movie called Inside Out that resonates with this message (must watch!). So, all the emotions that you experience are important and inevitable, but your reaction to these moments determines your character and that is what you should focus on! Because it is ultimately your reaction that will allow you to live a contentful life.
1. Incorporate Stoic Lifestyle
Stoicism is a branch of philosophy that teaches us to not have very strong attachments to things because nothing is long-lasting. This is an important lesson but unfortunately also a hotspot for criticism. You often hear responses like: “So I shouldn’t have an attachment to my parents because it’s all temporary?”. This is an important point, and my understanding of the goal of Stoicism is that one should be ready for anything that might come one’s way. So, having an attachment with one’s parents is a must, but one should also be self-sufficient and able to survive on their own. When someone wants a prenuptial agreement it does not mean that they do not love their significant other, but that they are preparing themselves should it ever come to it. When someone writes a will, it does not mean that they have no desire to live, but that they are preparing everyone else for the worst situation. When someone signs up to become an organ donor, it does not mean that they do not like their organs, but that they are planning for what happens when situations are not favourable.
It is hard to live a true stoic life, it takes lots of practice. Then again, what doesn’t? One of the strongest attachments we have these days is to our mighty cellphones. All things can turn upside down so long as we have our electronic fix in our hands fully charged and connected to the internet. God forbid the battery goes down or wifi disconnects. What was invented as a means of communication has now become an addiction in our lives that we cannot get rid of. The worst part is that we are oblivious to the fact that it is detrimental to our personal lives. When we are bored, we bust out our phones and start scrolling through a bottomless pit of social media posts, because in our minds it is far better than facing our emotions. Among the many sociological damages that it does, it also reduces our attention span and mindfulness. When was the last time you enjoyed every morsel of your dinner? We lack mindfulness! But, more on that in a bit.
The stoic way of getting oneself ready for extreme circumstances is to experience them every once in a while. Take a camping trip where you survive on a minimal amount of things. For example, leave your cellphone and other gadgets back in the car. Leave the comfy mattress and sleep on the ground occasionally. Leave the car in the garage and walk to work every once in a while. Do not drink coffee one morning. Keep a fast every so often. If you experience things that are out of the norm every so often, then you are prepared for when you have to experience them against your will. For example, if you are not able to find food for a day, it will not be the end of the world because you have been practicing keeping your stomach empty every once in a while. Distancing oneself from the things that we take for granted allows us to appreciate them and puts our lives back into perspective.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent trial of this! I always liked the social aspect of university life, but I did not know the extent to which I liked it until we could no longer gather!
If you would like to read more about Stoicism, I suggest you read Letters from a Stoic, a compilation of letters written by a strong proponent of Stoicism, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
2. Practice Mindfulness
Because of various environmental parameters, we do not have the level of mindfulness that we should. A recent study finds that 88% of adults eat while staring at a screen. Dr. Lilian Cheung, the director of health promotion and communication at Harvard School of Public Health, claims that there is a positive correlation between the amount of television watched and the chances of overweight and obesity in her book titled: Savor: Mindful Eating. Mindful Life. Dr. Cheung further explains in her book that mindless eating affects the amount and frequency with which we ingest because we are often distracted by what is being presented on screen. She further shows that mindless eating makes us miss the cues that the body gives letting us know that we are full.
Eating is just one domain in which we lack mindfulness. When we go out for a walk, we are often distracted by our phones and when we sit on a bench in the park, we are on our phones. Just like the consequences of mindless eating, each of these activities we perform without giving it our undivided attention have similar health, social and other consequences that we are oblivious of. Simon Sinek articulated this beautifully: “When we show up to a meeting or a lunch, or a dinner with our colleagues, our clients, or our friends, or our families and we put the phone on the table, we have announced to everybody in the room that they are not that important to us”. Watch his entire talk here.
Cellphones, television, and other electronics have engrossed in our lives to such an extent that it is extremely hard for us to disconnect our minds from it, yet we have to try. If you are a parent, you should set some ground rules for the use of electronics in the house. An example would be to set the dinner table a no-cellphone or television zone. Go around the table and talk about what you are eating. Get your kids to explain what they tasting. Get them to pick out specific flavours in the food. This will allow their minds to get back to the task at hand.
One of the strategies to limit the use of cellphones to only what is most important is to try to be mindful of when your hand reaches the pocket. Ask yourself, what are you going to use it for? Scroll through Facebook? Use the calculator to calculate the tip at the restaurant? Call a cab? Do exactly what you intended to do and then put it right back! These are some of the things that can get you started with mindfulness exercises.
One of the main things that I do to practice mindfulness is meditation. I meditate 5 times a day for 5 minutes where I try to control the mind from wandering around. I try to focus on one particular topic, idea or thought and make sure to follow it to completion. I find this as the best technique to practice increasing my attention span and to keep away the environmental distractions.
3. Re-define your goals
Most people make their goals based on whatever society feeds them, this is downright destructive for your personal growth. You should make your own goals in life, based on your strengths, your environment, and your beliefs.
Particularly, it is much better if your goals are set not for the achievements, but just a step before the achievements. For example, if you would like to get into Harvard, you shouldn’t set your goal to study at Harvard, because this goal is not entirely dependant on your merit, there are a lot of other factors that go into this decision of your acceptance at Harvard that are out of your control. So, a better goal would be to try with the best of your abilities to submit a well-crafted application to Harvard. Now, all of a sudden your entire happiness factor changes. You’re not going to wait for April to hear about whether you got into Harvard or not, and feel achieved if you did. But you’re going to feel satisfied and accomplished right after January when you have submitted your application. Now, either you get in or you don’t it should not affect you because that was not your goal in the first place.
After setting the goals according to your terms, the second most important thing is having low expectations. You’re less likely to have any disappointment if you have lower expectations from everything.
The key to happiness is low expectations — Barry Schwartz
This should not be taken to mean that you do not have to put any effort in because you do not expect anything anyway. On the contrary. One needs to decouple the efforts from expectations. People expect things because they have put a lot of effort into them, but that is not always true. Parents do not put effort into parenting because they expect anything back, they do that because they have to.
I hope that these ideas help you gain a better perspective on life. If not that, then I hope that at the very least these will help invigorate and motivate you to think about ways to improve your lifestyle. If you have any other ideas that have been beneficial for your personal development, I’d love to hear them out.
Peace! ✌
