"Are You Happy?"

What does the word Happiness mean to you? Before you answer, consider it this way: "Happiness" is entirely dependent on something external-- you are happy with something or someone; you are happy because of something or someone. In other words, it's good if you are "happy," but in itself it is not the most desireable state.

Contentment, on the other hand, is based entirely within yourself. Its presence or absence is not dependent on external circumstances. This is not to say that it cannot ever be affected or influenced by external factors, but external factors are not at the core of its existence. As worded by Adin Steinsaltz: "When man lives in a state without any distortion of his being"-- this state is contentment; or, in more popular terms, at peace, spiritual, self-aware, acceptance.

Perhaps it is also important to note what contentment is not. It is not complacency, resignation, laziness, apathy, denial, immobilization-- all of these are negative, and each is a signal that something is not as it should be. True inner peace cannot exist when they are present.

To those of us for whom this inner peace is a natural state, it is frustrating and saddening to try to explain it to those who do not have it and/or do not understand it. Some people spend many years of their lives "seeking," yet are not completely certain what it is they are looking for; some refer to "enlightenment" or "spiritual experience," yet are not entirely sure of what it all means. Others do not even get that far; instead, focusing solely on the external to try to define what is within themselves. These are the folks who make a way of life of complaining, or of saying that they are 'bored,' or of endlessly looking for some elusive something to fill the emptiness and ease the discontent that is within.

Contentment comes from realizing that one has a purpose, and being "o.k." with that purpose. Part of a human's purpose is being who he or she is; part is doing what one knows one is intended to do. A human's state of inner peace can be disrupted when his "purpose" is under attack or threat-- either by himself or by someone else. While it may sound odd, people do it all the time-- they are simply not "o.k." with the person that is one's Self; they forget that "God does not make junk."

You may chase after Happiness-- and you may attain it. But contentment-- inner peace-- is something that you cannot attain by seeking or striving; all you really need to do is clear the obstacles out of the way-- and then you may find that it has been there all along.