Name: Claudine's review of Radically Content by Jamie Varon
Item: Radically Content
Rating: 4
Author: Claudine

Jamie Varon

Blending memoir, sharp social insights, and unique practical tools, author Jamie Varon is your guide to radical contentment—a satisfied life outside the bounds of societal expectations. Too many of us are waiting for our lives to begin, putting our happiness on layaway for some future version where it all lines up, when we’ve accomplished it all, when we have the perfect career, bodies, partners, and when our lives finally feel “good enough.” But what is good enough? Who gets to decide? And when do we ever reach it? Jamie takes a sharp, incisive look at the industries that are constantly telling us to do more, be more, and keep striving, pushing, and hustling—and shows you how to radically opt out of societal conditioning. We’ve learned to be terrified of contentment, thinking it will lead us to complacency. Yet, being content in a world that profits off our dissatisfaction is not complacency. It’s revolutionary. Radically Content makes the case for a new framework of living. Exploring themes like guilt, I’ll be happy when…, anxiety, settling, control, healing, shame, self-trust, and being our own worst enemies—not only will you unlearn the dogma of that discontent, but learn practical tools to create a more satisfied life for yourself, including: Cultivating real self-trust Defining your own version of “success” Living with intention Rewriting your personal narrative Creating consistent and healing rituals Packed with revelatory insights, Radically Content is an exhale. A respite from the chaos of our current world. A calm place to land when you’ve had enough with trying to be enough.

Being Satisfied in an Endlessly Dissatisfied World

Radically Content

I love the 'home' bit. Reminded me of a scene in Koreeda's 

 where the biological son of the rich lead was brought to their home which was the stark contrast of the child's real home, the home of his foster father. The kid's thought about the rich lead's home was 'it feels like a hotel'. Impressive, fancy, yes, but it's not 

Claudine

When you give yourself permission to opt out of the societal expectations, you get to find that voice within that is trying to create for you the most beautiful life that fits you perfectly. It may not look impressive, but it’ll feel generative, lovely, and like home.

Go toward the good, the positive outcome. Not just trying to outrun a shameful feeling, or to berate yourself. When you add things to your life for a good reason, you are ensuring your own success. Most times if you find yourself not sticking to something, it’s likely because your why is constructed around shame.

Because, what is love if not the word, the intent, and the action of being loving? Love cannot just be words alone. It cannot just be intent alone. It cannot just be action alone. It has to be all of it, together.

That’s how an intentional life feels. Like you’re listening to yourself and acting in accordance with that.

Imagine your partner saying one thing and their actions lining up with another reality entirely. They say they love you, but they act in a way that doesn’t really convey that sentiment. The relationship you have with yourself is the exact same way. If you say you want something, truly, and then act in direct opposition to it, it creates an internal struggle. It creates dissatisfaction. It creates anxiety. It creates unhappiness.

The conclusions that you have come to are not the conclusions you need to keep coming to. Think about that. Think about how you are forming patterns. Think about what you take as some sort of ultimate truth. “I’m just not ready for that.” “I’m such a mess.” “I’m always anxious.” “Things don’t work out for me.” Even if you have evidence to support these statements, you likely have evidence to support the opposite, too.

Representation is so important, because without it we have a hard time knowing what is possible.

And then I get lost in this spiral, this negotiation of keeping up, this external reward and downgrading and upgrading—and I no longer know how I feel about anything. Just how others feel about everything. And it happens in a snap. In the shower on an ordinary Saturday, when I’m minding my own business, trying to wash the conditioner out of my hair. The wave of it, sudden. And at least now I’m in the place where I can notice it cresting over me.

Aspiration is not motivating. Let’s unlearn that. You may think that exposing yourself to the perception of perfection will motivate you, but actually it can eat away at you and create insecurities where none existed before.

I became almost thankful I hadn’t received all that I thought I wanted, because if I didn’t think I deserved it, then I probably would have self-sabotaged. I had self-sabotaged before on smaller scales. On a larger scale that self-sabotage can be catastrophic. I felt I had been spared that. And I started to sense a budding gratefulness for having been spared.

I realized that I didn’t have a “not doing enough” problem. I had a worth problem. A deserving problem. I was making that reality true over and over and over again. Even when I hit certain milestones, I was still making it true that it wasn’t good enough.

How other people think of you is on them. How you think of you is what matters—that is your job. From that point, see what you still want to do in your life. See which dreams stay and which ones go. You may be surprised.

Settling, to me, feels like ignoring my gifts. It feels like telling myself something isn’t possible when I haven’t even tried. It feels like saying I’m too old to do what I want to do. It feels like rejecting myself before someone else might reject me. It feels like avoiding the hard work of believing in myself so that I never get disappointed.

Where I think we get it wrong is when we ascribe a definition to settling that is based on someone else’s life.

Settling is not a place or a configuration of a life. It’s a feeling. And I’ve come to realize that when we have unspent dreams within us, when we aren’t living honestly to our truest selves, when we are hiding parts of ourselves away, when we are neglecting to honor our deepest desires—that is a life that feels like settling.

That tension—of loving where you are and building where you’re going—is one of the most important things for me to balance.

If the external world wasn’t going to affirm me, then I would be intent on affirming myself. At every age. I resent the idea of late bloomers. It might seem like a compliment. It might be a way to assuage the feeling that coming into your dreams later could be a positive thing. But in actuality it creates a time line, where no time line needs to exist. There is no time line for blooming. Who decides when a person is “late”? Can we ever really be “late” to our own lives? We can all bloom at our own pace, thank you very much. I decided after the chaos of turning thirty that I’d never let my age determine my possibilities ever again. I’d stop being so worried about “settling” and, instead, learn to enjoy my life at every stage I was in, every version of myself I’d become, every old skin I’d shed. And instead of having my life be a fear of settling, I’d simply live as wholly and honestly as I could and continue to grow and evolve as needed.

When a trickier emotion rises to the surface, the best thing you can do is listen to it, try to understand the wisdom in it, and sit with it. Try not to suppress, distract, and numb the harder emotions. Don’t play the “I’ll be happy when...” game to avoid the healing. It’s a distraction. Your life is here. Right now. Not when.

When we are no longer terrified of failure, rejection, disappointment, sadness, grief, any of it—that’s when we’re on the path to healing. When you can feel these things, learn from them, deepen your relationship to yourself and others through them—that, to me, is being in a healed state.

There’s so much trauma inflicted on others by people who refuse to reckon with themselves, who refuse to take responsibility for their own healing, who think they can achieve their way into feeling whole. The grasp for power is a way to bypass healing. The greed, the accumulation, the over emphasis on superficial achievements—it’s all a way to get around the healing.

Achievement can be wonderful. But achieving when you are truly able to embrace it from a healed place is one thing. Achieving when you are trying to prove your worth—it complicates everything.

But the work of being happy is not an accumulation. It’s not an eventuality after you’ve achieved enough and own enough and have enough. Think of how wildly unfair that would be in a world that is so deeply inequitable.

Grow, yes. Learn, definitely. Stretch yourself, absolutely. But do it from a place of foundational happiness. Get to the feelings first.

So, what if your happiest life wasn’t going to be very impressive by societal standards? Would you still want it?

The thing about self-help books is that most follow one of either 2 routes: advice backed by science with very structured recommendations OR anecdotal sharing, the biopic-sy type. With the number of self-help books (yay, pop psych!) I've read in succession recently, I do find value in both approaches. But here's the important part for me: if a book claims to be 'self-help,' it should go beyond mere inspiration and provide actionable steps. Some books are big on inspiration ("Be the change you want to see!"), but they often leave you wondering, "Okay, what do I do now?" Self-help should encourage self-reflection and personal assessment, sure, but not everyone knows where to begin, even with all the encouraging statements.

I think Jamie Varon's book resonated with me so much because I relate to her self-introduction, and that her initial thoughts on societal pressure reinforce things I already believe to be true. Which I think can potentially lead for me to be disappointed if at some point in the book, no specific recommendations are provided to counter all the thoughts on personal dissatisfaction. Thankfully, Jamie did not disappoint. I just generally find it odd how motivational self-help books are sometimes structured, and my feelings on that were reflected on how I also saw this book. But overall, still a great start-of-the-year read.

Some bits I found powerful (non-verbatim, expounded thoughts mine):

The thing about self-help books is that most follow one of either 2 routes: advice backed by science with very structured recommendations OR anecdotal sharing, the biopic-sy type. With the number of self-help books (yay, pop psych!) I've read in succession recently, I do find value in both approaches. But here's the important part for me: if a book claims to be 'self-help,' it should go beyond mere inspiration and provide actionable steps. Some books are big on inspiration ("Be the change you want to see!"), but they often leave you wondering, "Okay, what do I do now?" Self-help should encourage self-reflection and personal assessment, sure, but not everyone knows where to begin, even with all the encouraging statements.

I think Jamie Varon's book resonated with me so much because I relate to her self-introduction, and that her initial thoughts on societal pressure reinforce things I already believe to be true. Which I think can potentially lead for me to be disappointed if at some point in the book, no specific recommendations are provided to counter all the thoughts on personal dissatisfaction. Thankfully, Jamie did not disappoint. I just generally find it odd how motivational self-help books are sometimes structured, and my feelings on that were reflected on how I also saw this book. But overall, still a great start-of-the-year read.

Some bits I found powerful (non-verbatim, expounded thoughts mine):

It's never about the thing that is attained, it's really ultimately about how you feel about them. Which is why you can truly find joy in anything--whatever it is you 'achieve'.

If your values are clear, one main tool you always always need to filter stuff through is your personal discernment. If things are unclear on where you stand, you will always be swayed by what the world dictates is important. 

Self-trust first, self-care is a byproduct of that.

"Contentment isn’t giving up. It’s a foundation." Contentment is not complacency. It's good starting ground for a desire to grow and do more things in a meaningful way because you are NOT driven by self-hate or competition (envy) to pursue things. Achieving things will always be a highly personal act focused on your self-fulfillment, not an external metric.

A morning self-affirmations ritual helps in asserting what you believe about yourself. If done daily, this can help you navigate through your day (once they become sticky enough to remember like your phone number or email address :)) because things that don't match with what you affirm for yourself will be very apparent, which can help you assess how you do life.

Normalize joy for the sake of joy, y'all~

Giulia

A call to action book on self-trust, joy and unlearning the systems that have taught us to be small and unhappy. A proclamation of relearning and reclaiming our own lives.

How can the pinnacle of the human experience, the one that we all compare and contrast with, be so inaccessible to most of the world’s population?

A value system that places emphasis on a hierarchy that purports that as long as someone is “below” us, we are doing okay in life. We take this societal value system on, and it becomes synthesized as our own truth. We ingest and absorb it. 

People feel like failures for not thriving in a broken world, in broken systems, in corruption, in a world where many countries elevate profit above humanity.

I am existentially in crisis most of the time. But I am also stubbornly in love with life. It’s a paradox I’ve been trying to reconcile for thirty-six years now. A buzzing between there must be more than this and I must make the most of this.

...contentment is not about living without dreams or hopes. Contentment, to me, is not complacency. It’s not settling. It’s about living fully expressed, not delaying my joy for the promise of some future check mark that society has told me to want. When you are content with where you are, it doesn’t make you less motivated. It makes you motivated by the right things. It makes you motivated by love, passion, enjoyment, genuine desire—and you aren’t striving for worthiness.

Contentment isn’t giving up. It’s a foundation.

Without any knowledge that this dissatisfaction is being pumped into the very air we breathe, it’s hard to know what is yours to carry—and what is something that has been ingrained over the years.

What ends justify the means, if the means are unhappiness, loss of time, loss of enjoyment? What ends are more important than our well-being, our relationships, our mental, physical, and emotional health?

These are the questions I could never answer. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the unanswerable nature of these questions is what made them so tantalizing and elusive. Maybe that’s how dissatisfaction breeds into productivity.

That’s the genius of the dissatisfaction—there’s no real way to cultivate the opposite. It’s a losing game. We’re not ever supposed to find our way out of the labyrinth. It’s meant to keep us confused and searching and chasing and striving and hustling and proving. The dissatisfaction does not have a solution. It’s an issue with many heads and tangents. It’s meant to be unobtainable. It’s a problem that is designed to stay a problem. It keeps us addicted to solutions that will never work.

We bore these insecurities that are, at the core, simply fears of what other people will think about us. Because we have internalized an idea that all of us need to be the same, look the same, and fall into the same ideal and standard.

We think it’s something that has no solution, because so often we look for the solution outside of ourselves. We accumulate and achieve and do all the things we’re supposed to do and still the dissatisfaction is present. But that’s because there is nothing that the external world can give you when you have to give satisfaction to yourself.

To me, the only way to satisfaction is by a drastic, overwhelming unlearning. 

The culture that made us sick cannot make us well. So, the only logical solution is to opt out of the culture that is making us unwell.

(Generally, I guess. As long as your expressed self doesn't cause harm!)

For me, the pursuit is in having the freest life. The most expressed. The least held back. 

The goal is to be the most expressed version of yourself.

We don’t realize it, but often what we’re motivated by are external rewards. The external rewards we’ve been conditioned to care about: how other people view our lives; how impressive we are; how “well” we’re doing based on a very narrow definition.

Most of us don’t really want more—we want the freedom that a life like that seems to represent. We want the feeling of it, but not the actual logistics of it. It’s a lot of responsibility to own multiple homes, to have hundreds of people rely on you for their livelihood, to sustain fame, to manage staff, to deal with the logistics of a life that complex. Maybe what we crave isn’t the conventional success, but what we’ve been told you get to feel at that level—who you get to be and what possibilities open for you. 

It takes a significant amount of self-exploration and honesty to admit that certain things you want are so you can say you have them to people who mostly don’t care. People care, but people care about their own life.

Claudine &
Radically Content by Jamie Varon

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Radically Content by Jamie Varon