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Contentment is not satisfaction.  It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much.  It is to take the cup of Providence, and call upon the name of the Lord.  What the cup contains is its contents.  To get all there is in the cup is the act and art of contentment.  Not to drink because one has but half a cup, or because one does not like its flavor, or because someone else has silver to one's own glass, is to lose the contents; and that is the penalty, if not the meaning, of discontent. 

No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost what he has.  It is high philosophy to say, we can have just what we like if we like what we have; but this much at least can be done, and this is contentment: to have the most and best in life by making the most and best of what we have.

(Malthie Babcock)

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So turning gloomily from my fellow men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and, trembling, I forgave!

(John Greenleaf Whittier)

No one of us escapes limitations...Some people are gifted with their hands, some people are gifted in the realm of art or music, some people are gifted in the realm of abstract ideas.  Almost no one is gifted in all three realms.  We are all limited, and we must accept ourselves with our limitations, recognizing that we can do what others cannot do, that we can contribute where others cannot contribute.

To accept ourselves with our limitations means also that we will recognize how variable and flexible our lives can be.  The great thing about life is that as long as we live we have the privilege of growing.  We can learn new skills, engage in new kinds of work, devote ourselves to new causes, make new friends, if only we will exercise a little initiative and refuse to become fixed, rigid....

Let us, then, learn how to accept ourselves--accept the truth that we are capable in some directions and limited in others, that genius is rare, that mediocrity is the portion of almost all of us, but that all of us can contribute from the storehouse of our skills to the enrichment of our common life.  Let us accept our emotional frailties, knowing that every person has some phobia lurking within his mind and that the normal person is he who is willing to accept life with its limitations and its opportunities joyfully and courageously.

(Joshua Loth Liebman)

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/solitaire.asp