Discontent comes in many flavors. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

All contentment is alike; every flavor of discontent is displeasing in its own way.

Today's essay explores the many flavors of discontent.

Then: a podcast episode with a professional organizer.

Acquired Taste

Joshua Fields Millburn

On my walk this morning I was drinking and thinking—taking sips of filtered water and contemplating the famous opening line from Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

The profundity that Tolstoy found in that sentence is what mystics have known for millennia: Contentment cannot be acquired, but dissatisfaction can. Rather easily, in fact.

Contentment is like water: naturally tasteless, it needs no additives to improve it. You notice its taste only when something is added.

Discontent, however, comes in many flavors: envy, comparison, expectation, ambition, resentment, status, novelty, craving. Each added ingredient gives dissatisfaction its own strange taste.

Ironically, we acquire these unpalatable flavors while attempting to improve the taste of contentment.

You know… My life would taste better with a little more money or a nicer car or a bigger house. Maybe more attention (look at me), more awards (check out my YouTube plaque), more praise (I deserve a pat on the back).

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with these types of flavor enhancers—I'm mean, you don’t need to become an ascetic to experience contentment—you’re in for a world of hurt as soon as your enhancements turn into requirements.

Besides, the more sweetness you add, the less satisfying plain water is. Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation—a fancy term that simply means what once felt extraordinary becomes ordinary over time. Last year’s raise is now the paycheck you expect every two weeks. And yesterday’s upgrade is now today’s obsolescence.

Eventually, sweeter requires sweeter … and sweeter … and sweeter.

Perhaps, then, the thing we obtain isn’t the flashy car or the giant house or the impressive job title. What we really acquire is a taste for those things—a synthetic thirst that now needs repeated quenching.

So in a real way, dissatisfaction is an acquired taste.

This is why the path of improvement eventually leads to deficiency. The moment we decide water must taste better, we have declared that water itself is insufficient. And so we stir in another ingredient, another achievement, another possession, hoping the next thing will finally satisfy us.

Maybe we can find contentment by simply learning to taste the water again, uncontaminated by the artificial flavors our culture pushes on us daily.

So let’s raise our undiluted glasses.
Contentment is a drink best served neat.

—JFM

P.S. If you can taste the discontent, Emotional Clutter is now available as a beautiful hardcover.

the minimalists PODCAST

"Shared space requires shared grace."

Read 5 new maxims in the show notes

EPISODE 553 | ORGANIZE BY ROOM

This week we speak with Dr. Julia Raz about keeping common areas clutter free, organizing by room, and more. Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Patreon.