to beleive that the happy is the enemy of the contented?

[Ormirian]

Because it seems to me that so many people I know yearn for the unattainable and disregard what they have in their attempt to get it.

Life is short. Life is also largely not nirvana. It is ordinary and banal.

Why is it a failure to find small moments of joy in the day to day? And accept the dull stuff in between?

Or is that defeatist?

[PaisleyLeaf]

It sounds like you've got someone/something specific in your mind as most people I know do find their joy in the day to day and appreciate that life is short.

yanbu.

[Ormirian]

Not particularly. Just a cross-section of people I know and the things I see in the media.

[animula]

Interesting question. My mother often says this to me. And I reply: "But mother, if we were all like that, we'd still be living in caves, getting excited about a lightning strike, so we could do that new thing with meat. what's it called? Mmmm. Cooking. Instead, we can go out for dinner, in a restaurant, built of bricks, and eat food from around the world, brought to us in boats, and aeroplanes."

Discontent, yearning, the dim feeling that there is more beyond the horizon, and the ensuing, compelling curiosity to go there, is not, necessarily, a bad thing.

[PaisleyLeaf]

I think I know what you mean.
There are people who do seem to 'miss the point'.

[Habbibu]

But that doesn't preclude being generally contented with your lot, does it? Can't you be contented and ambitious/interested/curious at the same time?

[Habbibu]

sorry - my post to animula.

[Ormirian]

There is a difference between curiosity and discontent though.

[animula]

Habbibu - Not according to my mother!

That's true, though. The two don't preclude each other, do they? I suppose I'm thinking about family/parenting here, and isn't one of the big things about parenting that it teaches you that the two are woven through each other? So, as a parent, you have to look forward, and plan, (with hope and ambition,) but at the same time, you're (hopefully) always pulled into the present, and the day-to-day, sometimes pretty dull stuff, but with (pass the sick-bag) joy?

(I've just put the dc to bed - and it was very nice, and cuddly, even if, I guess, a bit routine and dull. But a really good "dull". So I'm bizarrely sentimental right now.)