As a college student who is constantly stressed out about my education, my finances, and my future, I’ve done a lot of thinking about contentment. It’s an interesting concept, and one that I believe is often confused with complacency. I am told over and over again to be content with my position in life, and to trust God with the things that I’m worried about. However, I am also told to pursue what I want, to work for my future, to provide for myself. In the past few weeks especially, I’ve been trying to reconcile the idea of contentment with the fact that I really need to use my gifts and talents. I want to be content, but I don’t want to be complacent.

The conclusion that I came to is that contentment asks questions and is OK with the answers, while complacency doesn’t ask a single thing to begin with. What does this mean? Well, take the example of writing. I think I can say that I have some small skill with words, and I want to use that skill to provide for myself and to communicate my ideas to other people. Contentment is actively pursuing writing opportunities, sending in my work to publishing companies, and being OK when I am rejected or told no. Complacency is thinking to myself that I’m not good enough to be accepted, and never sending anything in in the first place.

We are all born with different sets of talents. Some of them may be obvious, like my brother’s talent on the soccer field. Some of them may be quieter, like my friend Gwendolin’s ability to make anyone feel comfortable and welcomed. In the same way, we are all born with ambitions. Some people want to change the world. Some people just want to get married and have a family. None of these talents or ambitions are intrinsically wrong, or intrinsically better or worse than other talents or ambitions. We should all want to use our gifts to accomplish our ambitions. There’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is when we are consistently and actively bitter about the results that we receive, which often comes about through comparison with others. Also wrong is not bothering to use our gifts for anything.

I hope this is an encouragement. Whatever your talents are, they are worth using, no matter how many times you get rejected. Wanting to make yourself and the world around you better isn’t discontentment. It’s a natural response to having talents and ambitions. So please stop comparing yourself to other people, stop feeling bitter about rejection, and start using your talents. Ask questions of the world, and be content with the answers.