I have concluded - through literature, observation and experience - that choice and recognition are the strongest determinants to contentment or discontentment. The first, choice, has two not necessarily related categorical aspects - the having of choices and making good choices. To take money for example, having money gives you choices and even if you don't do anything with the money, the psychological cushion of being able to make choices is significant. Making good choices with your finances, be it an opportune investment or shopping for a good deal, also contributes to contentment. On the contrary, having the lack of choices or making bad choices bring much discontentment - in part due to real consequences, in part psychological - to the actor. Of course, this is not restricted to money and can be applied in many cases where there are decisions to be made.
The second, recognition, is more complex. Being recognised extensively and positively, for whatever reason, lends itself to contentment. The value of the positive here happens in a context. A drug lord scoring a major business is recognised positively by a certain group of people, but recognised negatively by another. As such, it depends very much on how the actor's thought system is aligned and to which 'milieu'. The extent and quality of recognition are obvious augmenters of its contribution to contentment.
2 comments:
So you speak of freedom and belonging?
Choices too require context. Having of choices only brings contentment if it is possible to not have that choice. There is a certain isolation and depression commonly associated with the super-rich. They can have anything they want. The having of choices no longer brings contentment because it is no longer in itself a value.
Same with making good choices I think. If I present A & B to you, ask you to pick one or the other, and say to you that one of them, when picked, will result in an immediate but painful death, then if you managed to pick the non-death choice, it will bring contentment, despite the lack of any actual reward.
If instead I say that either A or B will result in you getting a cat if you pick it, then there is not much contentment. Provided you like having a cat in the first place...
Perhaps being not able to choose is a more meaningful determinant? If given the A or B thing, and you are allowed to not choose A or B, that presents more contentment because if presents more freedom no?
Tan? Who?
Points taken. Let me refine.
I think choices have value (or more value) when it has an opportunity cost. Choices when constrained and limited increase in their value. It is only then that choice can bring about contentment.
So a super-rich person who has unconstrained choices will not be contented, until he makes a choice that has an opportunity cost.
Your second and third examples are choices between something and nothing. A 'something' that will + contentment or - contentment. They also seem to imply that it is a matter of luck. It is theoretically valid but I want to avoid focusing on these choices because such choices seldom are the important choices that we make and encounter daily. Note empirical slant of inquiry. A good random question to ask at this point would be: what are the necessary conditions (failing which, important conditions) for contentment?
Finally, freedom does not necessarily mean contentment. An impoverished vagabond can have all the freedom in the world to choose or not choose, but that has nothing to do with him being contented or not no?
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