And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves. [15] And, being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them.

If you wish to have peace and contentment, release your attachment to all things outside your control. This is the path of freedom and happiness. If you want not just peace and contentment, but power and wealth too, you may forfeit the former in seeking the latter, and will lose your freedom and happiness along the way.

I'm sounding like Oprah, but if you're not practicing contentment where you are now, you're not getting contentment when you get what you want.

Being deeply contented with God in my everyday life is a focused attitude. It is always available. It means practicing letting go of my obsession with how I'm doing. It means training myself to learn to actually be present with people, and seeking to love them.

Whether we're happy with our circumstances or not, giving God praise is so important.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I am pretty happy with myself. I am not saying I am flawless, but I am content with the way I am.

He who stands in need of nothing cannot be bound by anything.

Freedom is not having everything we crave, it's being able to go without the things we crave and being OK with it.

Whatever you set aside to seek happiness, remember where you put it.

The only thing I envy about a cat is its purr, remarked Dr. Blythe once, listening to Doc's resonant melody. It is the most contented sound in the world.

Perhaps college may be around the bend in the road, but I haven't got to the bend yet and I don't think much about it lest I might grow discontented.