Kierkegaard’s Three Ways to Live More Fully

How, given the kinds of beings that we are, is it possible to live a meaningful life? Or more particularly, where are we to find the significant differences among the possible actions in our lives? For it is these differences that provide a basis for making decisions about who we are to be or become.

As Setiya recalls in his book Midlife, he was heading towards the age of forty when he first began to feel a creeping sense of emptiness, which he would later come to understand as the result of living a project-driven life, crammed not with atelic activities but telic ones, the primary purpose of which was to have them done, and to have achieved c

Throughout the week, or whatever time period you do this live-with, increase the amount of time (coming as close to one hundred percent as possible) spent only in activities that meet at least one of the following criteria: • the activity is easy, effortless and enjoyable; • the activity is intrinsically meaningful to you; • the activity feels natu

Think of the days on which you have nothing to look forward to but sleep: a respite from childcare, putting out fires at work, fighting to keep your relationships alive. Don’t get me wrong, these things all matter. Their value may be final; but it is essentially ameliorative. Caught on the treadmill of what has to be done, day by day, you may not h