Contentment is not the state of having something
It is a state of not desiring something
Desire is the tension that moves a person towards it’s fulfillment.
If you desired to have a shoe, you will pursue the acquisition of the shoe. Once you have the shoe, you may feel contented.
But your contentment is not because you now have the shoe but because the desire has ended and the tension is gone.
Otherwise if the desire still exists, you will not be satisfied even if you got the shoe.
Indeed one may acquire many shoes and still not be content, while another may have one shoe and be content.
The taste of a fulfilled desire is therefore predetermined by an individual before they acquire the object of their desire.
Whether one becomes contented depends on whether the desire ends and not on whether the object of desire was obtained.
Essentially, contentment is the absence of desire.
Now, since we cannot live entirely without desires, one may examine the objects of his desires to see which ones are worth desiring
Fabio is a mental health professional, researcher and lecturer of psychology at Kenyatta university.