I recently wrote on the need for contentment. I wrote that losing touch with contentment renders accomplishments, achievements and acquisitions hollow – they do not satisfy. Success without contentment is not success at all.

It has been said that the happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they simply make the best of everything. And they understand that contentment is not the fulfillment of what we want, but the appreciation for what we have.

I believe the key to contentment is simple, but not easy: gratitude. We must choose to be grateful for what we have. We must never let the things we want cause us to forget the things we have.

However, we need to understand that we cannot be content with contentment. Contentment must be in business with two partners: Desire and Drive.

As I mentioned earlier, success without contentment is not success at all. Desire and drive without contentment is perpetual dissatisfaction – nothing is good enough.

Likewise, contentment without desire and drive is not success either – it is complacency.  Desire and drive without contentment is not success – it is dissatisfaction. We must understand that contentment, desire and drive are not mutually exclusive. All three must work together to create true success.

If we’re only concerned about being content we can easily settle for less than our best. We can settle for less than excellence. We will not reach beyond our grasp to discover new frontiers through trial and error, curiosity and innovation. Contentment without desire and drive would keep us in a static state of “good enough”. Nothing great was ever achieved through the declaration of “good enough”.

Any significant breakthrough in human achievement took place because someone dared to dream beyond what they were currently experiencing. In fact most human accomplishments we enjoy in our everyday lives were once thought to be impossible by the masses prior to someone who dared to think outside the box.

It’s desire and drive that lead us to great accomplishments and endeavors. It is desire and drive that enable us to dare to dream. Martin Luther King Jr. said,

“Some look at what is and ask, ‘Why?’. Others dream of what could be and declare, ‘Why not!’”

Contentment by itself will slide into complacency, causing us to settle for the status quo. We will not dream of what can be and declare “Why not!”. It will seduce us into settling for good instead of great, ok instead of awesome, fine instead of fantastic, and ordinary instead of extraordinary.

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little ‘extra’. Contentment without desire and drive misses that little extra.

However, desire and drive without contentment misses the joy in the journey. It is devoid of celebration and satisfaction. We become driven by a relentless desire for more. We chase the horizon – we never get closer to our objective. We live in the gap of where we are and where we want to be. It is a no man’s land devoid of celebration, gratitude, and satisfaction.

That is a terrible way to live.

If we can discover how to live in the beautiful balance of desire and drive with contentment we will move forward into greater endeavors and accomplishments celebrating each step along the way with great gratitude for what we have done. We will linger in the accomplishment, enjoying the flavor of our success like a fine wine continuing to grace our palate.

We can then experience the stirring of desire and the will to step out into new ventures, grateful for what we have experienced up to this point, but thirsty for a new level of accomplishment.

Contentment enables us to have joy in the journey and celebrate our arrival at the destination. Desire and drive enable us to keep moving forward in the journey of discovery toward our identified destination, again, and again, and again.

True success is a beautifully balanced combination of desire, drive and contentment. We enjoy the journey and celebrate the destination. And, we keep moving forward into greater growth in an attitude of gratitude along the way.

Don’t be content with contentment – be sure to partner it with desire and drive.