Contentment
 

Most people are searching for contentment in their lives or they are living is a state of blissful ignorance. People for the most part try and follow a doctrine whether it be Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Secularism, Capitalism, Socialism, Paganism or Satanism to achieve solace or contentment. Many people think that by believing in the doctrine itself that they can achieve inner contentment. What many fail to realize is that the goal is not in the doctrine itself but in following the guidelines set out by the doctrine. Merely following the guidelines in of themselves will not achieve the desired effect either. To arrive at a state of contentment one has to make the guidelines their own by the process of rediscovering them for themselves.

Most if not all people have doubts, anxieties, fears and or phobias about themselves and or the universe about them. This is largely brought on by the uncertain nature of the future and or their own abilities and veracity. While the universe and events may seem chaotic it does seem at least superficially to live by it's own self imposed rules. Yet there are no rules and uncertainty is the true nature of the universe and the attendant doubts, anxieties and fears have to be dealt with on this roller coaster of a ride called life.

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For me contentment is a nice bottle of pinot noir and looking out at the sea.

Jesus: Most if not all people have doubts, anxieties, fears and or phobias about themselves and or the universe about them.

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Tabs, if content, why the worry over what others do or think?

Because I write about it doesn't mean I worry about it... I clarify and define situations as an objective observer. If that creates worry or fear within you, it means you don't understand completely what you are dealing with.

That said fear and anxiety are natural states of being alive. Many times that is a heads up giving you warning that something is up..as to which you have an as of yet unawareness of. That is a built in survival alarm system.

In life there are challenges and struggles to resolve or overcome. That is a given and you will have worries etc but those are EXTERNAL PROBLEMS to be dealt with and not within yourself. The contentment I am talking about is other than the day to day living. Briefly it is in how you handle your situations, and your own state of being. Getting to know that the problems are external to yourself and not within you is the trick, and that takes the process of making those previously stated "guidelines your own"

Until you can do that you are one big ball of confusion. Welcome to the jungle Baby

I follow the doctrine of Tabulism, secure in the belief that you are all idiots and the sky is truly falling. It gives me great comfort.

Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be Tabby...

:)

Is this a vote for ignorant bliss? Or an acceptance that you have limitations and are struggling through them the best you can?

A man has got to know his limitations...

Think Sun Tzu...

The sky is NOT going to fall but empires like the Twin Towers of American financial imperialism can fall down.

In a physical measurement by testing of intelligence 99 out of 100 of you are more stupid than I am...that is a statistical FACT. Here is the big but it still costs me what $2 for a cup of Starbucks joe. So it doesn't buy me much, I still have the same struggles and challenges to face in life that you do .

Then there is the fact that to varying degrees most are one big ball of confusion*....that is something that you can work out and mostly don't.. and that don't is what makes you an idiot.

They say that the definition of crazy is when you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome.. I hear the same whining from all of you over and over again without resolution. I make comment upon it as a chronicler of the times as to what the state of affairs is. Since the story remains the same....


*There is the old saying in Poker that if you can not tell who the chumps are at the table you are the chump...Well so far I can tell who all the chumps are at the table..

Here is a little song I heard///


There's a boat on the reef with a broken back
And I can see it very well...

I could honestly could care less if any of you are smarter, or richer than I am (likely on both accounts), because I seem to have what many of you are chasing.....contentment.

Contentment is fleeting and evolutionary.

Major milestones for me were:

16 got laid. mind blown. reality attained when she moved on.
18 and traveling to Europe with a backpack and Eurorail pass. I came home with a very different take on nearly everything.
21 I could order a drink in a bar/restaurant or buy freely from a store. something that I worked hard to side step the previous 4 years.
30 met my future wife, married at 32 - overcome with the stress of being ultimately responsible for someone else.
33 my son arrived - overcome with stress of failing him.
34 my daughter arrived - overcome with joyfull emotion.
36 absolutely killing it at work, top of the game.
50 neglected to maintain the skills that used to succeed at work

55 working on a path to get back to contentment. still have my wife, kids, and respect

I have no advice.

What is the question again? If you are asking 'am I content', the answer is yes.

Lordy, how did humanity survive before objective tabs?

It could have been a valuable discussion about the many layers of contentment, but instead it is merely another vehicle for objective tabs to lord his illusion of superiority over parf.

The apostle Paul found his faith to provide him contentment in whatever his situation, whether in distress, danger, hunger, or prosperity. His “secret” was his faith in his saviour who strengthened him.

I am content with my discontent (or lack thereof)....does that count :)?

Gads, how terrible it must be to be objectively content...so removed from the slings and arrows of normal life.

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To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

This certainly is true for Buddhism. What I found so attractive about it was that Buddha himself stressed that it was very important for people to not believe him. To believe him would be mean that you were taking it on faith, and he didn't want you to have faith, he wanted you to take action. Follow his instructions, and make it happen for yourself. Its an instruction manual, not a faith.

The problem with this, is our brain works by believing or not believing inputs, our entire thought process is faith based on what we want to take in.

People can take action based on a flat earth, because that is what they believe, people can take action based on a globe, because that is what they believe.

Each person has his own filter of what he finds faith in, without faith we are brain dead.

You can find consensus's of things believed in common, such as reading 10 = 9+1 if you automatically have faith in base 10.

But what about the guy that sees 10 in binary?

Whether we want to admit it or not, the entirety of human knowledge is based on faith, separation of what we believe to be fiction or non fiction.

Not buying it. Probably should take it over to PARF.

Thank you for this thread. I have been too caught up in the world. I used to study the Tao, and it was a calming influence in stressful times. I need more of that right now. Time to worry less. It wil all work out.

Take color.

People agree on colors, but do we see colors the same?

Is the way my mind processes different colors make them appear to me like they do to others?

It is an assumption of faith that this is so.

I can point to red.

You can point to red.

That doesn't prove we both perceive red the same way, just that we separate that wavelength and call it red.

How my mind processes the wavelength of purple may be how you see the wavelength of red. We have no way of knowing this, yet our mental "reality" is colored.

People inherently seem to assume by faith that everyone sees the colors in the same way. How does it effect you to be challenged that this might not be so? You and I have no way of proving it one way or the other.

People have faith about a lot of things without ever realizing it until challenged, even then many chose to close their eyes to it choosing to believe in what can only be a "higher empirical power than their own existence"(Without acknowledging it as such).

The more you learn, the larger grow the surrounding bounds of what you don't know.

The realization that you don't know something is an opportunity to expand the bounds of what you know, and it also simultaneously expands the bounds of what you don't know even larger than they were before.

When someone appeals to "reasonable solutions", what defines reasonable if not a higher power they are attempting to conjure to take sway in the discussion that transcends the listener?

People are faith based in every thing as the brain is a filter of inputs. Some can recognize it, making it easier to correct errors and inconsistencies in their thinking process. Others refuse and prefer to stay close minded.

My last two post were not about religion, but rather cognitive process.

We are presented with inputs, ideas, feelings, etc, then choose our own "reality".

Take a recent thread where Superman contested a different meaning of Introvert and Extrovert than nearly all of the rest of the posters in that thread.

You could confront him with a dictionary, and he'd stick to his belief.

He processed the inputs, and chose his own reality.

As do we all; about everything.

Like it or not, I see human intelligence is based on faith.

Why else do people when confronted with the same set of information claim different things about it?

Here is yet another shocking statistic:

The mortality rate in America is 100%! :eek: 1 out of 1 person eventually dies. And it gets worse! 50% of doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class. Hmmm. Maybe the two are connected? :p

If not all med school graduates become doctors...how does that change your latter statistic?

But you have to have faith that the action or road you are on will make it happen for yourself or bear fruit. In the darkest of night you have to have faith that the action taken will lead to the light.

Sounds like Trump. :D

I suppose this gets into semantics. The first time you rebuild an automatic transmission, you don't have to have faith in your Chiltons manual. If you follow the instructions carefully, your transmission works when you are done. Then you rebuild another and another. Over time, it becomes obvious that the instructions were correct. It doesn't require faith. It only requires that you take action, and carefully follow instructions.

For me it was giving my life to Jesus Christ last spring. After pursuing every high and adrenaline rush since I was a kid, none of it moved me anymore at 58.
- I had cheated death more times by age 24 than most people do in their entire life. At my current age I began to realize that there is some other purpose, a mission while I'm still alive. I had also began to 'feel' that there is a higher calling, if you will.

Now, I'm more at peace. I've been moved from within to give back - time, money, other resources and my skills to those who are in need. Part of this is sharing my automotive / restoration / engineering skills with adolescent boys and young men from my church family.

You see, I've failed my only son when he was very young - and now as a 28 year old, has been in and out of jail. But there's still time to heal from that.

I would like to see a published statistical analysis which refers to one of ts cohorts as “stupid.”

This would give me contentment.

Dude, lay off the meds.... or get back on them.

Tabs is just more of an intellectual troll than anything else. Now where is that grain of salt?

Remember guys the best way to avoid the undue influence of others is to truly know yourself. Contentment can be found there.

As for me contentment is not that complicated. Every night I go to sleep with someone I understand and love...me.

This ain’t intellectual - it’s idiotic.

werd.

that third glass of wine at a good meal with good friends.

(from my long ago past) a cigarette on the porch with coworkers during a break.

napping on a sunday afternoon with my infant son or daughter also napping on my chest.

an unexpected hug or kiss from my wife.


contentment has got to be one of the greatest feelings I've experienced.



Contentment is a very worthy goal and I think the secret to much happiness.

Those are some hard words to read.

Our kids are their own persons and will be who they will be. if one time taking in the view on the wrong side of the bard doesn't teach you then I don't think it's likely much else would have.

How do you physically measure intelligence? :rolleyes: It appears you need to drastically reduce that "99" number above...

Interesting thread subject, though.

At 61 and contemplating retirement I find myself looking back and lamenting all the years I wasted living like a wild man.

The most discontent people
.....are those who are obsessed with other peoples' level of contentment or ignorance.

That is my hat size...I have a very swelled up head, cause I is so smart...