Contentment

Someone asked me,” Don’t you feel that as a Christian, you cant gamble, smoke, fool around, drink etc, life’s still so limited or boring?”

Although I had an answer in mind, this question set me thinking for a bit. Not because I doubted my faith or myself, neither but rather, an important word came into my mind the next day. And it was Contentment. What is Contentment?

Many define satisfaction, joy, happiness and success with having as much pleasures in life where possible and not forgetting accumulating wealth as one integral part of it. Truly, at the end of the day, will your heart, soul, mind have that joy you yearned for if all these are bestowed on your life? No doubt that, money is needed and having more is good but to my realization, having more only helps reduces a person’s number of worries. One of my revelations of Adam smith’s “Unlimited Wants vs. Scarce Resource” was the motivating reason behind this theory is human’s insatiable nature.

My answer to the question earlier is, even without all these things in my life, I can still have a happy and enjoyable life. The difference in whether one has to achieve the so called level of happiness is defined in his/her level of contentment he/she has set. Oh yes, it is always easy to rebuff this ideology that one has low level of or no goals/dreams/contentment because I have not much of what I want in life. How true is that? I’ve seen great men and women making big in life and you see them, you imagine, are these people what they seem to be? I admire Ms Elim Chew, founder of 77th street, a great philanthropist with a humble nature, so willing to help and give to the next generation. Most may think: ah she’s rich, she got it all, of course she can do whatever she want, so far and so forth but how many knows about her and her humble beginnings?

When the word Contentment fell into my head, I came to realize that I take much joy with what I have, what I do, where I am, what have went through. It is not because I have low expectations or nothing much to look forward in life but rather, how I know to count my blessings in my own life. I know that amidst my problems and imperfections, I learnt to champion my situations. People may never know what you and I have gone through but at the end of the day, I can be contented with what I have; simply because I appreciate what the world deems it “simple pleasures” of life.

“Success is, waking up and cannot wait to fly out of the door every morning. Success is, making people feel. Success is, working with the people you love and connecting with the world. And Success is finding a way to bind people with no connections with a dream. Success is, joy, freedom, friendship. Lastly, Success is really Love”- you can give without loving but you can never love without giving.


Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
3 JOHN 2