The so-called contentment is not difficult to understand literally. It is nothing more than knowing that you are satisfied with what you have. This thing includes both material and spiritual aspects. If people know how to be content, they won't have any wild desires, and they won't do things beyond their power. They can calmly face many complicated problems and the society will tend to be harmonious. So harmony is based on contentment. Building a harmonious society is now a fashionable formulation. What is harmony? My understanding is that the so-called "harmony" means the word "grain" plus the word "mouth", which means that everyone has food. The so-called "harmony" means the word "speech" plus the word "public", which means that everyone can speak. Everyone has food, everyone can express their opinions, people are satisfied with this, and this society will be harmonious.
So contentment is a necessary prerequisite. Guan Zi said, "A barn knows etiquette, and food and clothing are enough to know honor and disgrace." Maslow in the west also has a hierarchy of needs theory, which holds that human needs are divided into five levels, of which the lowest and most basic level is the need for survival and the highest level is the need for self-realization. If you can't even reach the basic level, you can't even get the respected needs, let alone the self-realization needs. So contentment should be based on certain material conditions. It is impossible for the rich to have food and clothing, not only impossible, but also impossible to rebel, otherwise there will be so many uprisings and revolutions in history.
After the basic material and spiritual conditions are met, people should know how to be satisfied. Tolstoy put it well, "The less desire, the greater happiness". Toad wants to eat swan meat, knowing that it can't, and the result can only be a laughing stock. Many people in life feel uneasy about their duties. They look at those people whose level and ability are higher than their own, those whose lives are better than their own, those who are full of complaints and even jealous, and do many irrational things. The reason is that they don't know how to be satisfied yet.
Individuals should make progress, society should advance, and we should know enough is enough. To know what is missing is to know what is missing and what is not perfect. The so-called "shame before courage". Only when knowledge is lacking can there be endogenous motivation to improve oneself and promote social progress. Throughout the ages, arrogant people have hardly come to a good end. Why? Because he will never understand the truth of "making progress", it will never understand the truth of "there is a sky outside the sky, and there are people outside the earth", and it will never know the truth of "all rivers run into the sea". He naively thinks that he is a genius, and no one in the world can match him. The result can only be to stand still, stagnate, and end up in a miserable end.
We should strive hard and work hard to create the necessary material and spiritual wealth, so as to achieve contentment. We should also be modest and prudent, diligently pursue the unknown areas, generate strength from the lack of knowledge, and promote the progress of human society. I think this should be the dialectical relationship between scientific contentment and lack of knowledge.
As an oversight. "Doing something" means doing something. In other words, cherish life in order to wait for the opportunity to play a role; Keeping fit is to make a difference. This is a positive attitude towards life and work. "Doing something wrong" means resolutely not doing anything that is not in line with justice and morality. The general idea is that people can do something only if they don't do it. The boundary between doing and not doing: that is, actively doing good deeds, doing good deeds and benefiting the country and the people; We must persist in doing wrong things, doing evil things, and doing things that harm others and benefit ourselves. Xu Teli, a proletarian revolutionist and educator in China, wrote a pair of couplets with the title "Do something, do something for others" to several young shop assistants: "It is useless to read books about your family often." It points out the direction for people to cultivate their self-cultivation.