Contentment is taking your present situation—whatever obstacles you are facing, whatever limitation you are living with, whatever chronic condition wears you down, whatever has smashed your dreams, whatever factors and circumstances in life tend to push you under—and admitting you don't like it but never saying, "I can't cope with it.

If we despise the position we have, it may be because of what I call "destination disease," which can also be called the greener grass syndrome. If we focus on being some other place because we think it's better, then we will neither enjoy where we are nor do what we must to succeed. 3.

Contentment is not a popular concept. Our culture actually discourages the idea. People are continually bombarded with the message, "What you have isn't enough. You need more—a bigger house, a better car, a larger salary, whiter teeth, sweeter breath, nicer clothes . . ." The list is endless. But the truth is that possessing healthy contentment is essential to being able to withstand failure. —Failing Forward DECIDE TODAY THAT WHAT YOU HAVE IS ENOUGH.

An infant is born with a clenched fist; a man dies with an open hand. Life has a way of prying free the things we think are so important.

I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.

The happiest people in life don't necessarily have the best of everything. They just try to make the best of everything. They're like the person in a remote village going to a well every day to get water who says, "Every time I come to this well, I come away with my bucket full!" instead of, "I can't believe I have to keep coming back to this well to fill up my bucket!

Now that I no longer desire all, I have it all without desire.

We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means.

Our problem is not that we desire too much but too little.

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.

After all, conflict arises, does it not, through the desire to be something, to be other than what is.

Expectation ... quickens desire, while possession deadens it.