October has been devoted to a better you. We’ve talked about sleep and diet. We’ve covered how you communicate and how you do your job and how you present yourself. I want to take one last week of October to focus on how to find the most satisfaction in your life.
Satisfaction may sound like a nebulous term. What makes Ron satisfied may not inspire John at all. A project that satisfies Linda may be borrrring to Jennifer…so how can we talk about a concept so individually defined for all of us?
Let’s begin by being honest with one another. Satisfaction, like all emotions, is fleeting. You may feel satisfaction one day only to have it erased the next. It is not a birthright. No one owes you happiness or satisfaction in life. It is not easy. There are no simple promises: do this and you will be happy. It sounds rather bleak, doesn’t it?
The truth is, satisfaction is not that elusive. It begins when you know what you’re looking for, with a definition in mind. Satisfaction is not happiness or bliss or having what you want. Happiness is extrinsic and relative to circumstance, dependent on events. Bliss is a state of overarching happiness in which all the world lies at your feet. Neither last. So…what is satisfaction?
Satisfaction is acceptance of where you are in relation to where you want to be. It may involve striving for that state of acceptance if you are dissatisfied with your current life, but it rests in a level of what is enough, what is okay. According to Success magazine, you can cultivate satisfaction if you focus on the positive, eliminate stress, work on yourself and offer more understanding to others. I don’t doubt these things are helpful. But what if satisfaction was much more basic than that?
A brief stroll through Psychology today focused on proven research…proven, mind you, that if you have friends, a life story and goals, you too could feel satisfaction. I’m doubting that research or those conclusions…something there sounds fishy to me.
The key to satisfaction, at its most basic level, rests on no longer striving—for money, power, better friends, a faster car, nicer clothes…whatever has been in your bucket list all this time. Satisfaction implies just that. What you have is all you need to make you satisfied.
Remember Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz? She’d be happy if only she could go home. The Tin Man would be happy if only he had a heart. The Scarecrow would be happy if he only had a brain. The Cowardly Lion would be happy if only he had courage. Yet each of them had what they wanted most already embedded within them. Who devised the daring plan to rescue Dorothy? The Scarecrow. Who led the way? The Cowardly Lion. Who cried at the drop of a hat? The Tin Man. And Dorothy learned that if she couldn’t find happiness in her own backyard, she hadn’t lost it at all. She never had it to begin with…
The truth is, satisfaction is available to each and every one of us. Of course I’m not suggesting we never try to improve ourselves, just that we never base our satisfaction in life on what we have received. I would never suggest you turn down a raise. More money? Oh no, I’m satisfied with what I have. Of course you’ll accept a raise, but your satisfaction in life isn’t based on it.
Satisfaction is choosing to be content with you have. I like it.
