Who in his or her right mind believes -- even for a moment -- that the path to lasting contentment would be paved by continually thinking about everything that is seen as missing from one's life? Such a path may promise pleasure to come but its steps are spiked with discontentment.
Let's look at what we must do to free ourselves from our discontentment and that ever-seeking, never-quite-satisfied self whose endless aspirations we all know too well!
First, we must be willing to see the futility of our struggle to acquire more of those things in life that have already proven themselves powerless to please us. In concert with this effort comes the inner work of deliberately detaching ourselves from the familiar sense of self that promises us comfort even as it continues to sow the seeds of our discontent.
We can declare, "Enough is enough." We can learn to call upon a new "I" within that understands the futility of continuing to vest ourselves in the "hope of things seen." Rather than giving ourselves over to these malcontent feelings with their empty promises of a better tomorrow, we can let them go instead and gain possession of ourselves in the Now.
Our new intention to consciously detach ourselves from this discontented nature and the objects of its life is not an act of denial or resistance to whatever we may be feeling in the moment. This shift in the sense of "I" is a deliberate re-placement of our attention. Instead of trying to escape this discontented sense of self, we bring it -- along with its troubles and plans for freedom -- into the new and higher awareness of our True Nature. By daring to bring what would displease us about our life into the light of our new self-understanding, that light itself sees to it that we emerge victorious.