Contentment is: satisfaction, delight, gratification, grace, peaceful, appeased, delighted, thrilled, smiling, purring.
Contentment seems like a passive thing; in some ways it is, because you can feel it without doing anything. But for the state of mind to be more than fleeting and occasional, it requires a great effort. Not necessarily at a checklist (although Goethe had a good one, below) but mostly at continuing to move; contentment is peace without stagnation. It is being satisfied from having done something. Taking care of all the small details of your life can leave you feeling contented; if you clean your house, you feel contentment, even though you have not solved anything, you simply aligned the energies in your home so things can run smoothly. You have taken care of the loose ends so you can be aligned with spirit. You have plugged up the holes that drain you of energy, the things that keep you from enjoying the moment. Contentment is not a gift; it is a reward for being consciously aligned with the universe and your own higher self.
“Nine requisites for contented living:
Health enough to make work a pleasure.
Wealth enough to support your needs.
Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them.
Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them.
Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.
Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor.
Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.
Faith enough to make real the things of God.
Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.” Johann von Goethe
“Her grace in Speech, Makes me from Wondering, fall to weeping joyes. Such is the fulness of my heart’s content.” William Shakespeare, Henry VI, act1, scene 1, line 35