"Discontent is often a positive sign, especially when prompted by a glimpse of something better. Measured against nobler ideal, present reality limps.  If the discontent is authentic, it will generate zeal to bring the existing situation into line with the higher vision.   A person might realize one day. ? this house doesn?t have to be such a shack: we can start caring for the garden, gradually renew the paintwork and throw away some of the accumulated junk.? Discontent, when strong enough, can start a process, thereby improving morale and giving grounds for hope. 

Discontent, then, is a realistic response to a situation lacking perfection.  The word closest to it in a religious context is ?desire.? The Latin term desiderium means a lack or defect; the experience of desire is fundamentally a sense of incompleteness.  At a very deep level of our spirits, we seem to have a memory of something better.  Children born in a refugee camp may be delighted at a poor meal; less so their elders who remember better days. Our memory or intuition of a better state will not allow us to be totally absorbed in what is immediate.  The first stage of our questing for the ultimate is dissatisfaction with what is close at hand.

So we become aware of reaching out from the here-and now into the beyond.  In everyday life the real object of our desire is not always visible.  Often when our wishes are realized the aura surrounding them quickly dissipates and the ache returns.  It is easy to be deluded into thinking some particular thing or experience will satisfy the drive that motivates our search of the Holy Grail, but it is not so.  After you get what you want, you don?t want it.*  The human activity of desiring is basic, and only temporally linked with specific gratification.  It is meant to keep us moving toward the mystery of what lies beyond."

*the human heart has an infinite capacity for happiness. That is why material things with its inherent limits perennially frustrates and unable to satisfy the human heart...only an Infinite can satisfy it - and that is God.
very chim ah, but from my own experience, seems logical.