Being "Okay" / True Contentment

I've been musing a lot, lately, about what it really means to be content. Being okay with the now, not clawing for more, accepting your situation............ But the more I percolate on it, I'm finding that true contentment is so much more than just that surface  "being okay". 

I looked it up after really turning it over in my mind for a while and found phrases like "mental and emotional satisfaction with things as they are; peace of mind." You can see the whole shebang here. But that's still not it. There's an element of contentment that's missing even in the most complete dictionary.

The more I meditate on what it REALLY means to be content, I find that it goes beyond your feelings today. It's not happiness, because that's a fairly empty emotional response to an outside event. A baby can be truly happy because you made a goofy face and pointed it in his direction, but 2 seconds later, that same baby is crying. So happiness isn't what makes one content. 

Conversely a person can be truly content, but laughter is the last thing on their mind. So, here's what I came up with for contentment:

True contentment is NOT just embracing today's condition and being satisfied with it. Too often embracing today is just a stepping stone to a better tomorrow. We exist on the presupposition that tomorrow, or next week, or next year things will improve according to our definition of improvement. 

True contentment IS embracing our present condition and being truly satisfied to stay in our present state FOREVER. No matter what our present state may be, if we're truly content, we aren't looking at today as a bridge to better. We're thankful for wherever we might be and are okay with staying there. 

Easy to say on a healthy sunny day. But when sickness or want creeps in, can we still be that kind of content? 

The thesaurus uses words such as "complacency, ease, fulfillment, gratification, pleasure, and satisfaction" as synonyms for contentment. But some of those are WAY off base. The only word that I found that completely embraces what it means to be content is "peace". To be at peace, this way, forever.  Oh, to be truly CONTENT.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face to shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.

Num. 6:24-26