contentment and the past - the wheel of suffering

When we think "I am happy" what is happening is that we are not making a judgement about what we are, rather we are thinking "I was not happy [sometime before], but now I think it worth noting that I am". If we were happy always then what reason to ever declare it!

Likewise if someone ever makes a declaration of suffering - as I have been recently - it is in as many words a declaration of a past happiness which has now changed - or at least a belief that such happiness was possible, but now is not.

So it is with all declarations - we are not saying how it is, but rather how it was not and then comparing the difference.

I am happy is only said by people who experience lots of suffering and then find that it has gone.
Truely happy people never notice that they are happy - because it is normal and unremarkable.

Thus if we ever say that I have something we are noting the change from a time when we didn't have it, and when we say that we do not have something - as I have been - then we are noting the change from a time when we did.

It is not the having, nor the not-having, which is the issue but the change and comparison we make.

Stop making these comparisons and the happiness and sadness both stop and we become content.

A truely content and happy person never says I have this, they never say i do not have this, because they only take what is there and what is theirs. Where is the having then?