My Life Goal Is Contentment, Not Happiness

Don’t freak out – it’s a good thing I promise 🙂 . I recently read The Art Of Spending by Morgan Housel. I enjoyed one of his previous books, The Psychology of Money, but since I’m a finance nerd, I didn’t find any of those ideas groundbreaking. 

However, I did find The Art Of Spending very interesting and insightful because it dove into a lot of tangentially related topics that I’ve been contemplating most of my life. It put into clear and concise phrases things I’ve thought for a long time and several things that completely dictate how I live my life. For almost a decade my life goal has been to be content, not happy.

“People often chase the wrong emotion. They go for a buzz of happiness, which is fun but fleeting. It’s better to go for contentment, which feels even better and is much more durable….

When you’re content, you’re no longer chasing—which is a prerequisite to being in the moment. You only get to live in the moment—enjoying what you have right now rather than dwelling on the past or dreaming about the future—when you have a complete absence of expectations that things would have or could have been better than they are now. Then you get to enjoy what you have, what you’re doing, what you’ve created, and who you’re with.

Once you view contentment as the ultimate psychological mountaintop, your goals change. You recognize that the dopamine game can never be won—there’s always a next level you’re striving for—and so the only way to win is to stop playing. To be content.

And let me tell you: There are few greater monetary joys than realizing that you have everything you need, right now, to be as satisfied—even as happy—as you can be.” – The Art Of Spending

The Art of Spending describes this dichotomy very well. Happiness is basically a burst of dopamine. It’s great, but fleeting and when that quick rush is over, you’re back to chasing another hit of dopamine –  more and more fleeting happiness. And the addiction language is intentional. 

“By and large, your brain doesn’t want nice cars or big homes. It wants dopamine. That’s it. Your brain just wants dopamine.

I’ll leave it to the excellent book The Molecule of More to describe the process: Dopamine is the chemical of desire that always asks for more—more stuff, more stimulation, and more surprises. In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality.

From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters; it’s getting something—anything—that’s new. Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.” – The Art Of Spending

On almost the flip side of happiness, is contentment – it’s a less wild, but enduring emotion. It’s how I feel when I snuggle up in my favorite fluffy blanket with hot tea and a good book in our cozy apartment.

It’s the warmth in my chest when I walk down the fall leaf filled streets to visit my family in our small town. It’s looking out the window of my apartment and smiling at the sunrise bursting with color over the mountains while my Partner sleeps beside me. 

I’ve tried chasing happiness and it was a fool’s errand. At the beginning of my career, I did everything everyone said I needed to do that would supposedly make me happy. And I was very fortunate that I actually achieved all the goals I set for myself that I was promised would make me happy…forever. And none of it did. Not even for a little while.

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Not flying first class across the Atlantic for the weekend, not spending extravagantly on fancy shoes and not even getting my unicorn dream job. That job checked off literally every box I had written down to describe the dream job that would finally make me happy, the job that would make me joyous to keep doing for another 40 years….and I still wasn’t happy – or content.

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Because that’s happiness. I was chasing a high when I should have been chasing contentment. And that was a giant revelation I luckily had early on in my career after I started pursuing financial independence and taking a hard look at my spending and what parts of it ACTUALLY made me happier. And it was a surprisingly small amount. 

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I realized that it was the small things that I remembered years later – the times when I was with the people I love that gave me lasting happiness – not a small, superficial accomplishment I was chasing like nicer shoes or a fancier job title.

“When spending more money does make you happier, it’s usually for indirect reasons. Spending money on a nice, big house might make me happier—but probably because it makes it easier to entertain friends and family, and spending time with those people is actually what makes me happier.

It’s the same with vacations—going to Maui might be a joy, but perhaps the best part is a week of uninterrupted, work-free, email-free, commute-free time with your family. You can look at this from the opposite direction: Will a big, nice house make you happy if you don’t have friends and family to share it with? Will the vacation make you happy if you don’t enjoy spending time with your family? Will a fancy car make you happy if you only drive it while commuting to a job you despise?

If you already have some of the core ingredients for happiness, spending money can be like leverage for a good life. But if you’re lacking in some of those core areas, it becomes a false crutch. And it’s a frustrating one, because we’re so hardwired to think that having more money and spending more money should always lead to a better life.” – The Art Of Spending

I feel very fortunate that I came to this revelation so early in my life and most importantly, years before I retired because it completely changed what my goals were for retirement and what my ideal life looked like. I didn’t care about living lavishly just for the sake of doing so.

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I wanted to explore the world with my Partner, spend more time with my Mom and have the physical, mental and emotional energy to be there for the people I love. And once I retired, I was able to do all of those things. 

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I hit all of my contentment goals and I’ve mentioned in posts before that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and that’s true. I’m also way happier than I ever expected to be given my clinical depression. As my Partner eloquently said after gazing out at the sunset over a pristine turquoise sea on the other side of the world: “You can be miserable anywhere” 🙂 . 

I think I am this consistently happy because my overall happiness is based on contentment, not dopamine hits. I still have bursts of happiness that I enjoy, but it’s not what I’m chasing because I know it’s a fleeting emotion, a hit of dopamine. Contentment is a constant underlying warmth that’s always with me.

It’s me feeling grateful for what I have and excited for the day ahead, whether that involves going around my small town helping my family members or exploring a new country. I felt so much joy with even the small things in my life when I retired 6 years ago and I feel it now with double the net worth I had when I retired.

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So that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. When I meet new people and I respond to their standard life questions (“What do you do?” “Where do you live?”) they understandably seem to focus on the more unusual aspects of my life story like retiring at 30 and being a full-time nomad for 5 years.

And while all of that has been absolutely amazing, it’s being surrounded by the people I love and making memories with them that has brought me the most joy of my life. Retiring early definitely facilitated me being able to live this life surrounded by loved ones 24/7 and the journey to retirement allowed me to realize what aspects of life I value the most and chase them – and it’s contentment, not fleeting happiness.