Content makes the trained individual
swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content
enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists
only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens
the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and
growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best
efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the
world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of
progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a
station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a
step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man
should be content with what he _has_, but never with what he
_is_.
But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is
temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a
symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests;
happiness,--never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none
can be found in the cup of happiness.
Man is the only animal that can be really happy.
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