The difference between content and inert

I suppose at first glance, the difference is obvious - these two things don't really have a whole lot to do with each other. Except...

I suggested to someone yesterday that maybe this thing that I'm feeling - that I've been feeling for a little while - is contentment. Maybe I am content. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe I am just fine with the way things are. Maybe getting up every day, exercising, going to work for 10 hours, and hitting a meeting or heading home to watch t.v. - maybe that's enough and I'm fine with it. This thing that I am endlessly searching for - happiness, serenity, contentment - maybe I have it, right here all around me. Of course, how the hell would I know? If happiness was delivered to my doorstep in a nice box with a pretty bow - would I even be able to identify it as such? If I had happiness, would I know it? Because how often in life do we fail completely to acknowledge what is good or right about our lives, and instead identify all of the things that we would change or that we wish were different?

The more I think about these things the more I am convinced that these things are just a state of mind - and that I could easily have these things if I just decided to - if I maybe decided to acknowledge the good in my life a little more often as opposed to always focusing on the bad. For me, to achieve those things, to have that state of mind - requires one simple thing. Acceptance. I can either be upset about the way my life is and make myself miserable wanting it to be different, or I can just accept that it is the way it is. A funny thing happens when you achieve real acceptance about it - and I mean, real, true acceptance (which is an incredibly difficult thing to come by and hard to articulate) - there is nothing left to be upset about or to wish for. I suppose it is possible to accept things while at the same time wishing things were different - there are varying degrees of contentment and happiness I suppose. For me though - it's more of an all or nothing thing.

Most days I choose to struggle and be upset about my life and make myself miserable wishing things were different. On occasion - I feel the way I have felt lately - which is content. Why? Because I accept it the way it is. I have these days where I can ask myself - what if this is as good as it (meaning life) ever gets? And I can say, really truly - I am fine with that, it's really okay. And then as soon as I start wanting something, well, that feeling of contentment goes out the window. I guess lately I just choose to accept it, whatever it is. Because I can't change it. Or can I? I go back and forth between believing that I have the power to change the things that I wish were different in my life and believing that I have no control over this path that I'm on and no power to affect it, so I might as well accept it.

I go back and forth, between feeling miserable in this way and feeling like I can't change the things that make me miserable, and accepting those things as a last resort and feeling momentarily content. There is an in between, I know - it is feeling miserable and taking action to change it. But I don't feel like taking action (and it also doesn't seem to work on some things). I just feel like accepting it. Am I actually content though, or just inert? I don't know.