Heroes Not Zombies

What makes life a “good” life?

This seems such an easy question to answer…….until you start to try and answer it! In fact, it’s puzzled philosophers and other thinkers for centuries. You can read the views of Confucius, Seneca, Aristotle…..and on down the line of Eastern and Western philosophers, and then there is the whole body of religious and spiritual teaching through the ages.

One clear thread that runs through most of the literature on the subject includes some consideration of “eudaimonia” – what is often translated as “happiness”, but which is, I think, more usefully translated as “flourishing”.

My daily work as a doctor is about not only trying to help patients to suffer less, but also trying to help them to “flourish”. That, naturally, leads me to read a lot about this subject, and to think a lot about it too.

I’m not claiming I’ve got new insights, or even to have nailed this issue down, but I have reached the point of achieving some clarity about it which I’d like to share.

Here’s what I think. A good life doesn’t just happen. It’s an active process. It involves individual choices and what constitutes a good life for one person would not necessarily be a good one for someone else. It’s a dynamic, constantly changing phenomenon. Like life itself.

And it’s a creative process. We create the flourishing in our own lives. That’s not to say that others have no part to play, or that events outside of our control don’t have an impact. Of course they do. But as Viktor Frankl and William Glasser, amongst others, have said, what’s important is how you respond to the situations you find yourself in. You can’t always choose the situations but you do have some choice about your responses and your next actions.

Here’s one way to think about it. If it’s a creative process then what do you need on your palette? What paints do you need to create your good life?

The GOOD Life – the palette

• Love
• Understanding
• Passion
• Imagination
• In the amazing here and now.

The GOOD life – a summary

To love and be loved

To understand, to make sense of our lives

To engage wholeheartedly, to be passionate about, absorbed in, immersed in activities

To imagine actively, creating, expressing, dreaming and playing

All within the context of the daily reality, finding much to marvel at, to be amazed by, to be in awe of, in the present, in the here and the now

I’ll post about each of these in turn, but this is my key, these are my elements, my building blocks, the colours on my palette from which to create my experience of a good life.