Curse of being content

Is contented-ness at odds with ambition? Which is virtue; which is vice? Surely neither. These don’t exist in some vacuum entirely disjoint from one another. But to the extent that they occupy the same angle, which they certainly do, it follows that too is the extent that they are complementary.

Being truly content with an entity or position implies no need for more/better, and perhaps fleeting concern of ‘less/worse’ in whatever context. But the indomitable human spirit bleeds ambition. A failure to coax this blood into a bloodworthy endeaver lends the spirit to wither away at itself. Never enough never achieves any adequate ‘plenty’, just smirks en route to an elusive, ghostly full grin.

Is less more? When to more and when to less? How to balance enough more with plenty less? Ultimately, we run out of more and must either settle or embrace less. But not to practice and perfect less at the expense of more? Irreconcilable, it seems.

When I desire for ‘less’, I am practicing ‘more’. Perhaps too, practicing accepting ‘less’ often achieves ‘more’. So do I want more or less? How do I get either without becoming the other and being neither? Clearly, this wisdom forgoes me.