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Chris's crazy question #2
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
in Philosophy
Awesome replies to the first question, here is a brilliant introspection!
2 Are you 100% satisfied with your life? If not, then what do you need to make your life perfectly content?
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Jim Harbaugh was asked what his football team would have to accomplish in order to be satisfied with his team. He said it was a wrong question and that satisfaction is not a category in football. He did say that he might be happy at different times.
In Buddhism I think I have read that humans desires are infinite. So I think football is life in that you have to keep moving. You never accomplish some certain thing and then it is all easy street.
Yes, I am perfectly satisfied with my life, because I realise that whatever happens in my life is due to decisions I have made, owing to perceptions I have held.
My life is just fine.
It's everyone else around me that's messing theirs up, which occasionally trespasses on my territory but hey, I deal with that as it comes....
Limitless supply of ice-cream?....oh wait, I already got that from the fairy! Hurrah!
I haven't always been fully satisfied with my life. I don't think most people have.
But I'm starting to realize that, as @federica says, we owe our current circumstances to the decisions we've made in the past and how we perceive what's going on currently. No use fretting about what we did yesterday, or what may happen tomorrow. I've been dealt a hand for today, and I'm going to make the most of it.
When I think about how privileged I've been to live in a place with such a high standard of living, and so much personal freedom, I'm more than satisfied with my life. The majority of people throughout history, and most alive today, could only dream about such a life.
Indeed, we take so much for granted, we are very fortunate actually.
Shut down the What-If Factory.
I should be 100 percent satisfied but I am constantly complaining that I have no time for myself
But not the ice-cream factory.
Well, I guess I need to be content by expecting less and acclimating myself to being content with what I already have. At least that's what the proper Buddhist should say. I had quite a handful of knee-jerk needs, like mo money, bigger living quarters, even horses! And a killer bod. Ah well - another lifetime comes along every few minutes!
As far as "I" am concerned ...."I" am never satisfied and nor will "I" ever be satisfied, but through Dharma practice "I" am learning to go with the flow of unsatisfactoriness, that is, accept what is as is, which brings a sense of contentment...
@Shoshin many thanks for the reminder!
Am I 100% satisfied with my life? And if not, what do I need to make my life perfectly content?
Can't claim to be or ever been or ever even hope to be "100% satisfied" with anything, other than with a good meal or something like that. Now, "contentment" is the French word for happiness, and I think it is a generalized concept.
I do know, however, that true happiness is something that must spring from ones own insides. No doubt a lot of heartache and some misery will afflict most lives, but these things come our way in order to fortify our good faith and love and patience. If our happiness depended on things outside ourselves —over which we have little or no control— we could never be happy.
Can't say this one here could ever be "perfectly happy," but there are ways I've found that really help me feel good and fuzzy inside:
1) Not to look into the faults of others, but to examine my own (Holy Mother).
2) Have a healthy appetite and stay in good humor (laughing only at myself, ftmp)
3) Refusing to live in a small world, or think in the narrow confines of groups I'm in
4) Spending quality time with the elderly
5) Stargazing and people-watching
6) Travel as much as I can (I've never regretted a single trip I took or place I've been.)
7) Get enough sleep whenever I can
8) Exercise and meditation (Metta meditation will always work for me when other efforts fall flat.)
The philosophy of Buddhism should make one steady on the course. We're all gonna have to give up everything we love eventually. Except happiness.
I'm in a local astronomy club which combines these perfectly.
I'm not convinced it's possible, at this point, to be 100% satisfied. I am much better at accepting "what is" that I used to be. But despite my understanding that, the people around me do not,and that alone causes dissatisfaction because they put expectations on me that I still have to deal with whether I like it or not. I still have to deal with unpleasant things that are unsatisfactory and make me uncomfortable on various levels. But really I've only been meditating and learning about Buddhism for 4 years. That's a pretty small drop in the pond. I've come a long ways, and still have a long ways to go. I don't think there is a finish line to cross.
I am satisfied with my life because i have seen diffrent fasets of life,i know causes of it.I have met many diffrent people and thanks to them i am today who i am.I don`t regret anithing and i wait wihat kind surprises life brings to me tomorrow.
I'm certainly not 100% happy and part of the reason is that I neither know who Chris is or what makes his or her questions crazy.
When I worked for the ambulance service one of my jobs was to design patient satisfaction questionnaires. Needless to say, the way you ask the questions has a strong influence on the responses you get.
Yes: I have had to deal with 'loaded' questions in the NHS myself. As in the time I was officially diagnosed as pregnant (and having decided I was determined to have a home birth) I was asked by the midwife, not "Where have you decided to have your baby?" but "Which hospital have you chosen for your confinement?"
My response, "I'm not going to have my baby in any hospital. I've decided I want my baby at home" actually evinced a fleeting smile from her, as she shut her record book, and told me I'd have to advise the Doctor myself.
Which in and of itself, gave me enormous pleasure....
I'm unsatisfied with many parts of my life, but I'm trying to learn to be satisfied with being unsatisfied.