Martin Seligman, a noted psychologist and founder of the Positive Psychology movement, gave a talk on psychology, in which he touched on the 3 kinds of Happy Life you can have (or choose to have). Link to the video is here.
So let me recap his talk briefly: you can have the Pleasurable Life, the Good Life, or the Meaningful Life.
The Pleasurable Life
This is what most of us think of when we think of the life we want to have. Guys want to date beautiful women, drive fantastic sports cars, travel first class all over the world while eating at the best restaurants. Women want to date handsome men, wear beautiful clothes and lots of jewellery, and so on. Basically, this is the kind of life we would lead if we had enough money.
The Pleasurable Life is therefore characterized by enjoyment. People who live to eat, people who keep chasing the next thrill in their lives, or people who say that the whole point of life is to enjoy yourself – they’re living the Pleasurable Life.
The Good Life
The Good Life is characterised by engagement. This means that if you have an activity in which you can be so engrossed that you don’t notice time passing, you’re experiencing Flow, which is the hallmark of engagement. When you have Flow, you’re intensely focused on the activity, and your brain is whirring along at fantastic speeds as you reach peak cognitive ability. If you’ve ever seen an orchestra conductor, lost in his own world as the music surrounds him – then you’ve seen Flow. Maybe you’ve even experienced it yourself.
Flow doesn’t refer to when you play video games all day long and then realise that you just spent 5 hours straight in front of the console! Losing track of time isn’t the point. The point is that an activity essentially gives your brain a ‘high’. You could do it all day long, day in day out, and you wouldn’t feel bored or tired or even notice time passing.
So, if you want to live the Good Life, find an activity that gives you Flow.
The Meaningful Life
The Meaningful Life is best characterized by the word “service”. In serving something bigger, something nobler than ourselves, we find meaning in our lives. People who dedicate themselves to charity work, social activism or political crusades are looking for the Meaningful Life. However, it’s not just the case that charity work = Meaningful Life. The true defining characteristic of the Meaningful Life is that you have found something to do, that benefits not only yourself but other people as well.
An example would be a nurse. Of course the nurse benefits by having a job, but he/she is also doing something in service to the community. Therefore, the nurse would be living the Meaningful Life.
In conclusion:
There is no “better life”. Only you can know and choose which life is most suitable for you. After all, if it makes you happy, it’s probably good enough. This is just to remind us all that there is more to life than just eating well and looking beautiful, although those things are important too!
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