Overlaps Between Happiness and Contentment

by Dan
(Clearwater, FL)

Happiness is completely different from pleasure, in nearly every way.

Pleasure can lead to happiness and it can be a component in creating happiness, but comparing the two any further would be like comparing the all-around satisfaction with a good meal to a specific ingredient or seasoning that is only one of the things, even if it might be the key component, in creating that general satisfaction.


As a result, happiness is generally more enduring that pleasure. Both are states of mind, but pleasure is connected much more closely with the stimulus that creates it and normally lasts only residually as soon as the stimulus is gone.

Happiness can also follow this pattern, depending upon the stimuli that created it, but happiness is far more capable of sustainment. This is due to a key factor in happiness that we often neglect or even overlook entirely in modern American culture: contentment.

A great deal of the staying power of happiness comes with our continued perception of our satisfaction with things and we often reduce our control over this satisfaction by linking it only to the stimuli involved. In other words, lose the stimuli and lose the satisfaction and happiness that it generated.

By focusing more on the contentment aspects that lie within our happiness, we are better able to hone in on what is our own contribution to the process of being happy, namely, our very perceptions of it. When we feel content, we are focusing on what pleases and satisfies us, which usually amounts to focusing on and appreciating what we already have.

This is very much the cornerstone of the philosophy of people who try to wake up each day and think of what they can do and what they do have to work with, rather than becoming morose about all the things that they lack. It is a choice we all make, consciously or not, and one that becomes increasingly habitual each time we decide.