contentment vs happiness
??? My friend (and The Age's Chief Editorial Writer) Michael Short penned some thoughts recently that I think deserve serious pondering. In reflecting on Anthony Foster's life his piece was called, " Why happiness is overrated - and why contentment is a better measure ." "An entire industry has developed around the 'science of happiness', with coaches and psychologists and facilitators and gurus guiding the guileless and the grasping. Is such an unquestioning expectation a mistake? Is happiness perhaps not as reliable as we might believe? Is happiness a slightly flimsy, shallow notion? Might it not be better to seek something a little more solid? Happiness is closely associated with satisfying desire, with attaining pleasure. A better notion, surely, is contentment, which is related to happiness, but is more about being satisfied within realistic parameters, and not being rendered miserable by unmet, unrealistic or unjustified material and self