# What does it mean to feel "complete"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 6, 2013, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501 "2013-10-06T13:25:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Septima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Septima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Septima)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/21 "2013-10-06T23:19:47Z")
It means that you want nothing more. That everything is fine the way it is. Oh, sure, you’ll still want _stuff_. You’d still like to have that new x-box, or visit Paris, or get rid of some weight, or learn to play the guitar. But you know, deep down, that even if that never happens, you are OK with your life, and your body, and your person. Because all the important stuff is in place. It’s a weird little switch that just sort of flips. And after you get there, you’ll never be in doubt again. You are complete. And before I had it, I had no idea what it meant either. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/22 "2013-10-07T00:08:00Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Complete = satiated. Like having a itch scratched, a hunger fed. Like you can’t be happy without the thing you’re lacking. It can be a temporary or transient feeling. Ask any artist who has just completed a major creative project. The feeling of total gratification is very deep – and goes away the very instant the next project is undertaken. ETA: oops, not clear: I’m entirely agreeing with you! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/23 "2013-10-07T06:40:57Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Maybe, but “There is something missing in my life unless I get X” seems to be just a way of saying “I want X,” while saying “I feel incomplete without X” seems to be trying to say something more than simply “I want X.” I define “vocation” as “that activity which, when you found out about it, your Eureka thought was ‘_this_ is what I was missing!’” In order for the calling to be fulfilled, it needs the activity to be performed, and to be performed at a certain degree. From what you say, one of your wife’s vocations is as a mother and it needed to be performed to the fourth degree. Have you ever had such an Eureka moment? I had mine at 3 or 4, one of my brothers in high school, but I know people who can’t remember when they realized what their calling was and others who claim they don’t have one (for some of these, anybody who knows them can point out to the one part of their lives those people can not do without). ---
**Author:** ![MaltLiquor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@MaltLiquor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaltLiquor)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/24 "2013-10-08T05:42:41Z")
Septima got it. It is the pure satisfaction you get from the joy of being you. There is no way to describe it just as there is no way to describe an emotion. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/25 "2013-10-08T12:54:00Z")
The closest thing I can come up with in feeling is a oneness and peace with everything, It is not something just within the person, but a linking to every other person, and nature, and the heavens where one accept their place in the universe and is a peace that one had such a place and where it is. ---
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501/26 "2013-10-08T14:57:10Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Well, one possibility is having a life so filled with activity and emotion that it drowns out the sound of the whirling black vortex of annihilation that is our own deaths. Ha, i almost spewed my coffee on that one! This is one of the things i love about the dope… humor when I’m not expecting it. Though I can’t relate to the OP’s specific situation (kids would possibly add many things to my life, though “completing” it would not be one of them), I’ve felt complete lately. I’m simply not wanting for much of anything. It’s not that I’m wealthy w/ , but I have friends, I have family, I have love, and I have fun. The that I do make allows me the freedom and resources to do what the fuck I want to do most of the time. I really don’t feel that my life could be any better, so I consider it complete. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-feel-complete/670501.md?page=1)