By John Horton, M.D.

After two and a half years at Dartmouth College I was doing well, but had no sense of direction. I had noticed that no one around — students, faculty & alumni — was content.

It really stumped me. I didn’t see how I was going to be content. Nor did any of my academic studies point to a possibility of contentment.

So I left school and joined a Flying Doctors’ Service in South Africa as a volunteer. I lived in remote villages for weeks, with no electricity, no roads. I lived in a hut, like everyone else, happy to have cornmeal twice a day, an egg was a once-a-week occasion; a piece of chicken – a rare celebration.
But in the people of the villages I saw contentment.

One evening I sat on the side of a mountain and decided I was not going to leave that place until I had that same contentment. I didn’t pray to God or anything like that, I just wanted to experience what I saw in these people. As dusk fell, something awoke inside me, I could feel that contentment. And for 3-4 weeks I enjoyed a common feeling and connection with everybody.

Since that time, over 46 years, when I feel that contentment it’s exactly the same, it’s perfect in itself.

It does not need to evolve.