Satisfaction is not possible but contentment is. Many times we confuse contentment with satisfaction.

We are trained early on to go off-center when our desires are not satisfied. We feel restless when we have to wait for something to happen. Yet, much of our life we are in the state of wishing for something that is yet to be manifested and acting to get it. We spend little time on enjoying the object of our desire once we actually get what we want.

How quickly do you eat? How much do you appreciate a warm and comfortable bed at a long day's end? Did you stop and really savor the day you graduated from college? Do you celebrate your good relationships, which surely did not happen immediately? Not much, huh? Not every moment, right?

Did you enjoy cooking the food? Did you savor the long day? Did you have fun with each assignment that eventually led you to your college degree? Did you appreciate each fight that led to your successful marriage?

What would happen if we could train ourselves to enjoy desire itself? What would happen if we could enter our desires, savor their gradual unfolding and fruition? Could we learn to enjoy the desiring itself -- instead of getting what we want? I am talking of that big success -- having joy and fun each moment of your life... For there is nothing else!

Have you noticed that a fulfillment of is not as interesting as the desire itself? The sofa that was supposed to give you joy is just a sofa after 10 minutes of elation. But waiting for the sofa delivery could be agony of impatience or joy of anticipation.

And your perspective changes as each desire is fulfilled. Each fulfilled desire is a launch pad to a new desire. After breakfast we long for lunch! What happens if we liked breakfast so much that we are not hungry at lunch but are famished for diner? Fulfilling one desire causes another -- seldom anticipated -- desire to be generated.

We can be content in our life if we make peace with this perpetual desiring. We will be content if we can accept our nature and become happy with our perpetual desiring selves.

Contentment is recognizing that our desires will never be satisfied. It is about learning to savor the gap between desire and its fulfillment.

And by the way, learning to savor the gap is a segway to manifesting anything you want -- for it is the ultimate state of allowing...

Daily meditation: Tune into a desire that you have but which is not yet satisfied -- and savor the desire, savor the anticipation.

Copyright (c) Dr. Anatole Ruslanov