I really don't understand the idea that being content is a bad thing. I say that being content is the ultimate goal in life.

Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.

What is a good life? What is the goal I reach for? Many say "happiness", in our culture often tied to financial success, a good career, or fame. I say that happiness is a dangerous and impossible goal if you define it as the intense feeling you get from novelty and increase. While waiting for it to happen, which is most of the time, you focus on what you're supposed to get tomorrow, which is to say what you don't have today. Your life revolves around the lack of something.

Rather, being able to sit back, be grateful, look around and feel that nothing important is missing -- being content -- is what I believe people really mean when they say happiness as the utlimate goal in life.

There are two ways to becoming content: figure out what you're missing and get it, or open your eyes to what you have in front of you and realise that you have everything important already. Actually, there is only one way to be content: the latter. You can do it now, or you can do it in thirty years, after you reached those goals you set. At some point you need to settle and stop chasing the ever moving goal posts if you want to get there. It's only a choice and only a change of perspective; no action is required.

(Obviously, being content does not mean roll over and die. Someone content can still choose to evolve and grow. I'd actually argue that real growth occur best when it is done for its own sake, rather than for external validation or reaching a goal. He can choose to chase a career, or riches, or fame. But he doesn't value his life from those things.)