Contentment: A Key to Happiness

[G]odliness with contentment is great gain.
                             —1 Timothy 6:6

According to a Houston Chronicle column (10/25/17), Albert Einstein, arriving in Tokyo in 1922, didn’t have any “tip” money. So the Nobel-winning scientist scribbled a note and gave it to the bellhop, saying that someday the handwritten note would “probably be worth more than a regular tip.”

I’ll say! That note, which came to be known as “Albert Einstein’s Theory of Happiness,” sold for a jaw-dropping $1.3 million at a Jerusalem auction on October 24, 2017.

Here’s what the note-in-place-of-a-tip said: “A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

Worth $1.3 million? I don’t know. But the message is solid gold, reminding us that contentment is a key to happiness.

Your Bible says it this way: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Great maxim! And it’s free.

The secret to contentment is a selective memory:
remembering what’s gone right, instead of what’s gone wrong.

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