Does discontentment fuel your motivation for change?

Your question makes the assumption that I am discontent. My personal view is that, while things can always be better, than I am largely content with life in general. Surely nothing in my life would be classified as discontent.

But even then, I’m not sure there is a nexus between discontentment and motivation for change. Discontent (my opinions) is somewhat of a malaise – an amorphous feeling of dissatisfaction. Sort of a generalized dark cloud that may or may not have identifiable pieces.

But motivation for change, to me, is specific – not amorphous. There’s not enough detail or granularity in “discontent” to even let me focus on what I might want to change.

Or said another way, I am motivated to change things that I can focus in on, and that will make a difference. And I can’t focus in on “discontent” – I need more specifics in order to address them.

I sort of see what you’re getting at, and it may work as a motivator for you. But not for me.

Being content with myself means accepting me as as an imperfect being and a work in progress. I hope to keep on learning and evolving and improving for as long as I live.

When I was unhappy and miserable and chronically depressed, I actively sought means for self-improvement. I read books and magazines and went to various therapy sessions trying to change myself. Then I was struck by the epiphany of the paradox that as long as I kept battling against my nature, I could never be happy. I was being my own harshest critic by comparing myself to an unreasonable ideal, and trying to ‘fix’ what wasn’t really broken. No one in my gene pool was a Pollyanna; melancholy was the norm. It is who we are. Perhaps there was an up-side to being a downer.

I contemplated this and recognized how being a “deep thinker” is a good trait that led me naturally to being mindful, and how having been through so many painful experiences made me more empathetic of others, etc. This started a shift in perspective and ever since then, I’ve been able to find the proverbial silver lining or at least a valuable lesson in everything I’ve been through. And thus, I learned to accept myself as I am, and even to be proud for what I’d accomplished despite my past.

The next step was forgiveness. I had spent all of my conscious life being angry at those who harmed or neglected me as a child, and then blaming everything shitty in my life on them. I had to acknowledge that as an adult, I am responsible for making my own choices. Sure what they did to me was their fault, but if I kept using that as a scapegoat for avoiding personal accountability, I’d be keeping myself trapped in the victim mentality. So I had to forgive myself for all the things I had done in the name of victimhood that had held me back. Then, I accepted the fact that the people who had hurt me the most were incapable of taking accountability for their actions. I did not forgive them for what they’ve done, I’ve forgiven them for being too weak to own up to what they’d done and its lasting repercussions.

And the last and hardest hurdle has been loving myself, the way I love those most important in my life. That tough love that makes them do something they don’t really want to do, because down the road they’ll be glad I made them do it. I have little self-discipline. Perhaps, as your questions seems to speculate, I’ve grown complacent in my contentment. Having developed Rheumatic Auto-Immune Disease may be the discontent I need to finally get me off my ass, but I’m still not there yet.

Thank you for asking this question. Answering it has helped me look at things in a new way. I hope it helps you, too.

I think it fuels my motivation more than anything else.
The first inspiration I ever had to become a teacher was from a shitty pre-Calculus teacher I had junior year. He was such a jerk and barely even taught. Only about 20–30 minutes of the 45–50 minute period was allotted to actually teaching. He’d spend the first chunk of the class doing God-knows-what on his computer (someone put a mirror behind him once and saw him Sporcling). After that, he’d get up and run through a powerpoint, with his monotonic yet sassy voice, of the section to be learned that day. On the last slide, there’d be a list of problems to do for homework. He’d tell us to get started on them and then he’d sit right back down in the corner with his computer. It didn’t even seem like he knew the material, either, because he’d always make mistakes and refer to the book when people asked questions. One day, when the class was on lunch period, we had just got back from lunch and I asked to go to the bubbler (which was literally a 5 foot walk from the room) and he said no. We then got into an argument for ten minutes of class time on why I should/shouldn’t go to the bubbler. He just sassed me the whole time, but it ended in me being allowed to go to the bubbler haha.
Oh, and his tests? the majority of the problems were multiple choice and True/False…in a math class! On one of the tests, the first five questions had the options of A. True, or B. False. But then, on questions 6–10, he switched it to A. False, and B. True. I talked to him about it after explaining why I got the last five wrong, and he said “well you better watch out next time!” Gaaah!!
Anyways, I have ranted yet again, but I think that I get inspiration from negative influences, but positive influences help me become a better person. I have picked up techniques from great teachers that I use on the people I tutor. I’d talk about those, too, but I have to get to class now. I hope to replace any True/False/Mult. Choice-test-giving math teachers.

Great question.

There’s a sense in which a baby is perfect just as he is. That’s not an uncommon observation. We have no expectations of a baby, and the lack of expectations allows us to fully appreciate the way he is. But if, three years down the road, he still poops his pants, can’t walk and can’t speak, what then? Our expectations will have grown along the way, and the reality of this particular three-year-old probably doesn’t meet those expectations. Is he less perfect than before? Some parents of children like this often find that they can still set aside the disappointment of their unmet expectations and see the perfection of this child just as he is. I witness this all the time in my work.

It’s very hard to do the same thing with yourself though. There’s the expectation that someone my age and in my position ought to be doing this rather than that, shouldn’t still be having a hard time with this, should have more and better friends, etc. There are always going to be some areas of life where we fail to measure up to our own (or are they “our own”?) expectations. We’re behind the expected developmental curve in this or that area. Discontent sets in. It becomes very difficult to set the disappointment aside enough to appreciate the reality.

Perfection doesn’t preclude growth. It isn’t so much that we advance toward perfection (and shouldn’t be content until we get there); more that perfection is the journey of growth including each of its way stations. It wouldn’t do to just stop at this or that way station even though this place is fine just as it is. There’s growing to do, not because this place isn’t good enough, but because that’s what perfection does. Expectations are something else entirely.

Thanks for the great answers!

@thorninmud – Yes, I guess this is directly tied to expectations – and maybe unnecessarily so. It seems that like most things, this is visible in other people, but more difficult to investigate in yourself. I can see how other people’s minds are busy publishing an endless series of changing expectations. And they seem almost designed to cause a vast gap between desire and the current state. But investigating these within myself is more challenging. Seeing the mind generate these expectations is helpful. But the authors of these are often elusive, and can disguise themselves as intention.

Absolutely. I am quite discontented, in nearly every aspect of my life. While I am capable of reflecting on all I have achieved and all I have become, it is never enough. Discontentment is the drive that pushes me to be better every day. Despite my successes, I can’t accept that this is all there is to life. I want something more. But even that will probably not be enough. Once I am contented, I expect I will stop improving, and then I will probably start to live in my memories rather than the present, as so many older people tend to do.