Why are humans never content?

The statement “why are humans never content?” is looking ahead a lot of reasons. Contentment, satisfaction, and fulfilment are words that seem to remain fugitive to us, regardless of how well we do in our life.

“Be grateful for what you have; you’ll close up having more. If you condense on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

__Orphan Winfrey

We all long for having more and more than what others have & what we already have. That’s the immense reason for not being content in our lives. Furthermore, the measures of life satisfaction are generally subjective, that an individual finds esoterically crucial in their own life. This statement can also be depicted through an example such as; if a person is longing for a good job, house, luxuries, and all that. Then after an interval, he comes to meet with such things. Firstly, he will enjoy it a lot but after sometime when he will be fed up with these things, he will desire something different than this. He will be craved for something else. This example shows that humans are never satisfied with whatever they have either good or bad.

The reasons for never being content:-

The Need for Change :

As we know, human life is dynamic, not static, striving for improvements, and changes. That’s why we prefer to enjoy new things and unexplored. After getting a pleasant change in our lives, we become happy and contented for a limited time, but soon the unavoidable boredom creeps in, and again we wish for a milestone & some more changes in our lives. The moments of rejoice change day by day in our lives and environment. Because even when all our material and biological needs are contented, a state of sustained happiness will still remain a theoretical and elusive goal.

Social Influence :

We are living in a society that adores those who possess more and are ‘better-off’ than those who have less and limited. We are emboldened to toil harder to gain more and more for ourselves without concerning the second thought, whether we need them or not for which we are longing for. We are more focused to find happiness by forgetting that the best things in life are free, & don’t indulge in doing the simple things that give us real delectation and happiness.

Human capabilities of exploring, growing & longing to make him never contented but if we determine how much is enough to make us happy then we can be much more satisfied with ourselves. Setting up pragmatic goals and focusing to achieve only that can keep us apart from any type of disappointment & regrets and also make us more satisfied in our lives. Otherwise, we would pursuit wishes for getting more and more things and yet, never attain contentment.

The key to be understood is that we should go apart from social comparisons of having a lot. To live in the present moment is the secret to contentment, and do the things which you really want to do as a patent.

Comparison with others :

A comparison is also an object causing discontentment in human beings. When we make a comparison of ourselves with others it shifts our focus away from the positive facet of our own life & we conduce to become tragic, thinking about what others have that we don’t. By stopping to make comparisons with others, we might realize that we have worth that is much and more important than others. If we just have a look at our lives, ambitions, and the things that we have in our lives currently, we will come to find a lot of things that we are grateful for right now. By getting to know ourselves better we can set achievable goals and gradually optimize our happiness base-line.

Actually, it is more important to spend more time being in ‘the now’ and aware of the good things in our life as it is. You should only compare yourself with the person you were yesterday. This is the human with nature of never-ending demand will always direct us to be never being delectated. For instance, today I have a good house to live in, the next day I will desire a car, then social status, etc. This depicts that we are never content with the things we have. We start making comparisons by others without knowing the abilities by which we are blessed.

Ambition :

Ambitions are never confined so human ambitions have never known any bound that’s why the circle of human desires is vast. It was human ambition that directed him to set foot on the moon. We have explored the world, conquered nature & made our lives more comfortable and possibly more pleasurable.

The universe is always expanding, growing so are we as a patent or as a community. The moment we stop growing we will start dying. Being ambitious makes us toil harder to ameliorate ourselves and acquire better things. Being ambitious leads us to the illusion of future blissfulness & ultimately we are strayed from the felicity of present moments.

To some industrious achievers, success will never be satisfied after getting aims & goals, because they will get bored and need more challenging task it’s quite exhausting to think about it, but it is quite debilitating to just sit and relax, even if we are resting we can’t rest forever because of tedium, boredom is indeed a great motivator to do something that accomplishes the task. It is admirable to have new goals but take time to pause, look around, and see how far you have. For example, when we start driving up the mountain, we are hyper-concentrated on the road ahead as we drive in a demanding zigzag formation. But if we pause on the side of the road after a rift to look over our shoulder, we will realize how far we have come from the base.

Curiosity :

Human beings have always been very curious to know about new things. Curiosity is what made us come out of our grot-dwelling times and direct us to all the technological and intellectual advancements we see around us. But this inquisitiveness also makes us captivated to the things we don’t know about or don’t have. We are always snoopy to find out more about objects or experiences that are new & unfamiliar to us. This has been also proved that curiosity is one of the factors of not making humans satisfied. We always desire for innovations that’s why human curiosity has been proved to be a double-edged sword.

Accept Reality :

You are not born to give opinions all the time for everything – especially when they are negative. The thing which matters more is not your opinion, the crucial thing that matters more is reality. By making rough opinions & negotiation for nothing is just disgusting. You should always be contented with the reality because there are a lot of things in this universe that is out of your approach and control. Try to be contented on how much it is possible for you because wishing and hoping things lead us to anxiety. Always celebrate your wins even if they are small. This will keep you contented & happy to some extent. The reality is that our journey prolongs as we live, and if we ever think we have made it to the end, we might be limiting ourselves. We just don’t actualize it while setting our current goals. That’s why many of us never feel truly auspicious & contented. We don’t try to meet reality even we want fulfilment of our goals right now. Just live the moment!!!

Aristotle’s view :

Aristotle depicts that:

The basic role of ‘philosophy’ is to make queries and ponder about the nature of humans' thought & the universe. Philosophers have been inquiring about happiness since antiques. The philosophy of happiness & satisfaction depicts that the term ‘happiness’ is taken for granted in this modern era. However philosophers have been tracking the exploration of contentment- after all the motive of life is not just to live, but to live ‘well’. Here we will just have a look at the history of satisfaction or you can say happiness;

The first ancient Greek philosopher of the western world ‘Democritus’ strived to examine the nature of happiness. He put forth an intimation that it was previously thought, happiness does not come from good luck or other external situations. It was contended by Democritus that happiness that you get by contentment was just a ‘phase of mind’, introducing an idiomatic view as to what happiness is.

A more empirical survey of happiness was acquainted by Socrates, & his student, Plato.

They put forth the idea that happiness was “assured enjoyment of what is good and aesthetic” (Plato, 1999, p. 80). Plato enlightened the notion that the best & good life is one whereby a person is either chasing pleasure of exercising intellectual virtues. Hellenic history (i.e. ancient Greek times) was substantially vanquished by the prominent theory of hedonism.

Hedonism is, to put it simply, the dogging of pleasure as the only immanent good (Waterman,1993). It was the Cyrenaic view of felicity. It was depicted that a good life was nominated by seeking enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfying physical, intellectual/social requirements.

In antiques, it was also predicted that it is not possible to live a pleasant life without living in accordance with reason and integrity. Epicurus, whose work was subdued by hedonism, competed that in actuality, virtue ( living according to moralities ) and pleasures are interdependent.

Christian philosophers also depicted that happiness is in the hands of God. They also believed that earthly happiness was imperfect, they actualized the idea that Heaven promised eternal pleasures & satisfaction. A lot of histories and perspectives were given in ancient times by different philosophers and personalities.

How to Improve Life Satisfaction:-

There are a lot of factors that can be pursued for making your life contented and happier. Work on those factors to enhance the contentment with your life. Those factors include relationships with your loved & special ones, fulfilment from work, contentment with your physical health, happiness with your romantic life & delectation with your sense of spirituality or religion.

 Trying new things and changing your routine is a great way to improve your contentment with life.

 Social connection is also crucial for contentment. Even the most introvert people among us also need at least a few quality connections & occasional social interactions to feel felicitous with their life.

 Our interactions with people should be positive and also make efforts to ensure that you are having meetings with the right persons.

 Struggling with anxiety, doldrums, half-hearted disgrace, smirch, or anger can drag you down easily. You should set a goal to become a contented, happier & more resilient person and make efforts towards it. if you are not sure how to go about it then must visit a therapist.