Article by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, Inner Contentment

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Desires and How to Achieve Contentment
I strongly agree with Lama and Cutler’s assertions on personal desires and contentment. I find their assertions on types desires and methods of achieving contentment practical and logical. In this article, they have described two kinds of desires; intrinsic and extrinsic desires. Intrinsic desires include peace, happiness, harmony and friendly relationships while extrinsic are material. Intrinsic desires are worth an effort to achieve as their contentment is more fulfilling and useful to the individual’s life and the society. On the other hand, the are some unreasonable desires that often lead to more problems. For example, desires to have everything he/she sees in supermarkets is evil and selfish.
Desires are relative and are partly dependent on the society and individual lives on. Some desires might be negative in one society but necessary and welcome in another society. For example, a car might be a necessity in a rich neighborhood, but it can lead to discontentment if owned by a person living in a poor remote village in India. If the desires are common and reasonable to that society, then they are welcome but if they single out an individual, then they are unnecessary and would not lead to pure contentment. If the desires are within reach of the immediate society and they do not explicitly stand out, they are welcome and healthy for an individual.
Self-satisfaction cannot be the ultimate standard measure of whether an action is positive or n...