How To Be Content With What You Have
Updated 2024.10.02
In consumerism culture, the economy runs on spending to meet desires.
Here in America, spending can create debt which can prevent the feeling of freedom and with more spending-based debt to pay, the less money you have to fulfill your desires.
With less money to fulfill desires, you may still have the desire, but not be able to see it come into reality, which creates suffering.
So you can find yourself in a catch 22. You want to spend to meet your desires but spending can create debt which prevents you from meeting desires.
You can free yourself from the loop of having a desire, spending to fulfill it, creating an expense (debt) to feel better, then paying debt which creates a feeling of wanting freedom from debt, to having the desire to feel better and spending to fulfill it, and so it goes.
The good news is that if you want to be free of the endless cycle of wanting more, desiring more, and all the voices that say you should be doing more, having more, pursuing more, this article is for you.
You can be content with what you have.
You can be happy with what you have right now.
Here are 10 tips to be content with what you have:
1 - Create an infinite gratitude list
In your notes, create a list of everything you are grateful for right now. Every morning when you wake up, add a few things to your list. Allow this list to grow every day and review it when you add more to it.
2 - Inventory your physical assets
When you refresh your knowledge of all of the things in your possession, you may realize that you already have enough. You may find out you don't need another this or that, actually.
3 - Declutter
Go through your things, declutter what you aren’t using and haven’t used in a few years. When you declutter you realize you may have purchased things you thought would make you happy but didn’t.
Next time you want to acquire more to be more content than you are now - think of the things that have been decluttered, they are a nice reminder that maybe having more isn’t the answer, since it wasn’t in the past.
4 - Ask yourself if you’d want to take it with you to a new place
Anytime you are tempted to own something new, ask yourself if you’d want to box it up and carry it with you to your next place. Then ask yourself if you’d want your relatives to deal with it when you pass away. If the answer is no to both, stay content with what you have.
5 - Check to see if you have something similar
Sometimes the new toys we see simply remind us of something that already is.
If you see something you like at the store, ask yourself if there’s something in your inventory that is a lot like it. Then, instead of buying that thing, go home and play with that thing you already have that excites you.
6 - Consider the externalities to fulfill your specific desire
Externalities are third party consequences to industry that can be positive or negative. When something is created, something else, somewhere else is usually deconstructed to create it. Someone, somewhere else is benefited by it.
Simply think about what the externalities may be to your desire and if you’re okay with creating them to satisfy your desire for more.
7 - Focus on your bare necessities for a month
Food, shelter, transportation, healthcare and utilities. Tell yourself that you are focusing on meeting your needs only for one month and write down any desires that you have while focusing on just your needs.
Then after you’ve completed your needs-only experiment, go back to your written desires. See if you still want any of those things.
You may find that most of it you forgot about or clearly didn’t need, because you’re still around without it right now, reading about your previous desires.
8 - Mandatory expenses only
Even more stoic than the last one, go one step further and focus on your mandatory expenses only for a month. Mandatory expenses are those that you would die or go to jail without.
Ask…
Would I sacrifice my health and wellness, my clan’s health and wellness, if I didn’t acquire this? If the answer is no, walk away.
Would I go to jail, have my wages garnished, become entwined in the court system if I didn’t pay for this? If the answer is no, walk away.
Try this for just a month and see how much you can walk away from if you truly had to.
9 - Will it matter in a year?
Any time you think of fulfilling the desire for more, ask if this xyz will matter to you a year from now. If you’re not sure it will, simply be content with what you have right now.
10 - Take care of something you already have
Instead of acquiring more, take some time to maintain something you already have.
All things require maintenance and care. By caring for what you have, you’ll appreciate it more and that feeling of appreciation can sometimes completely replace the want for something else.
So many times, we buy things, acquire things, desire things that ultimately are not the answer to our happiness.
They do not create the lasting feelings of contentment we desire and if they did, we wouldn’t continue to desire new things, as the thirst would’ve been quenched by that last thing.
Occasionally, being content with what you have is really the answer to more contentment.
The goal of this article is to provide you with a few ways to be more aware of what you have, so you can be happier about where you are and with that, freeing yourself from the desire more - acquire more cycles that may ultimately not bring happiness into your life at this moment.
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