Living content with what you have is a healthy exercise in balance and demonstrating that you are close to serenity.

Everyday situations often make an individual suffer temptations and be attracted to what he does not have. But if he has moral strength he will not be seduced. With effort, he learned to control his desires and overcome the inner conflicts that he has overcome or is close to overcoming. He sees importance in the simplest things he has, because he looks at them from the right side, exactly the opposite of what many do.

The person - content with what he has – has developed a humble, grateful look, which makes him see the useful side of things in his life. Even if some have a monetary value, or a seductive appeal, their view about themselves does not involve a sense of exclusive ownership or self-promotion. And while they're in his care, he does not use them to flaunt or humiliate. He gives them the right value that they really have.

Simple in a little and simple in a lot

The idea of ​​the simple is commonly associated with the little. This does not mean that much cannot be linked to simplicity, especially when that much is not the result of excessive ambition, of selfish accumulation.

It so happens that the Divine Providence sometimes leads abundance to certain people, not to accumulate goods, but to make wealth produce more, and always for the general benefit, for the benefit of life.

One can find, in the crowds, wealthy people who understand their mission, their role in society. However, the suggestion contained in Matthew's evangelical text, 19: 22,23,24, is very strong and I would say almost exclusive. According to it, the rich face great difficulties to "enter the Kingdom of Heaven".

However, the misuse, or the abuse of things, cannot be related only to the one who is rich, wealthy. Often, the poor also do not value, waste, ignore the little they have, while still aiming for what they think is due. This should also make it difficult for you to enter that Kingdom. In both cases, first of all, there is moral poverty.

What one has and what one is

To be satisfied with what you have, in my understanding, is a result of being satisfied with what you are. In the latter case, there are two orders of ideas: 1 - the person is aware of himself, knows his limits, knows his conditions and where he can or cannot go, he would never venture to undertake something for which he is not prepared, he will not intend to occupy a space where he perceives not to fit;

2 - despite these findings, the person knows that life is a dynamic act and suggests progressive actions. Not longing for power, wealth, supremacy, does not mean being stagnant, inert and unproductive. On the contrary, overcoming oneself must be a constant, without this implying competing with others. It is one thing not to desire the impossible, it is another to stand with your arms crossed, without moving your intelligence. I do not discuss here the power of God, who can give the world to an individual if He wants. I speak of what that individual can or should do with what God has already given him.

To live well

In this line of reasoning, the idea of ​​the simple is linked to self-stripping, disinterestedness, detachment, applied to a responsible person, and consequently, free. With these characteristics, the individual is almost certainly also humble. We will then have the one who rejects the unnecessary, the superfluous, the useless, for understanding that he does not need this to live well. We will have one who learns to identify the real needs that will meet the standard of living that he must live.

But, it is not always easy to be aware of our real needs. Choices are made based on our ability to judge what is good for us. And this judgment is always ready to satisfy the demands of the moral defects that we have. Most of the time the "ego doesn't think" about the consequences of what it chooses. Hence, disappointments, delusion and failures arise. And also the pain.

This Kardec thinking makes all the difference

Allan Kardec wrote in The Gospel according to Spiritism: “Man can soften or increase the bitterness of his tests, by the way of facing earthly life” (¹). This thinking makes all the difference for anyone who is interested in adjusting to divine guidelines with less suffering. Kardec explains it better: “The result of the spiritual way of looking at life is the diminishing importance of worldly things, the moderation of human desires, making man content with his position, without envying that of others, and feeling less about his setbacks and disappointments. Thus, he acquires a calm and a resignation as useful to the health of the body as to that of the soul, while with envy, jealousy and ambition, he voluntarily surrenders to torture, increasing the miseries and anxieties of his short existence”.

The Spirit Fenelon, one of the collaborators in the elaboration of the Spiritist Doctrine, endorsed Kardec's statement when he said: “How many torments, on the contrary, can he avoided by the one who knows how to be content with what he has, who sees without envy what does not belong to him? That does not pretend to be more than what he is, (...) He is always calm, because he does not invent absurd needs. To be calm isn't it - in the midst of life's storms – a fortune?” (²)

Simplicity changes

Illusion is one of man's greatest enemies. It is important to beware of everything that eludes, and in this way to interrupt the flow that keeps the old man who went bankrupt alive and that needs to die in us. Only then will a renewed man be born, with an airy mind, a clear conscience, able to share the age of the Spirit.

Simplicity changes, creates a wise way of looking and doing differently, gives a gain in the life of those who want to be more and better, without judging themselves more and better than anyone else.

(1) ESE, chapter V, item 13, Reasons for resignation.

(2) ESE, chapter V, item 23, Voluntary torments.

Learn more at: Allan Kardec, The Book of Spirits, third book, Conservation Law.