Thoughtful living

Frankl states that life involves three inevitable kinds of tragedy, the ‘tragic triad’:

1. Pain and suffering,


2. Guilt, because we are free to make choices in our lives, and are responsible for the impact of those choices, and


3. Death, and knowing that our life is transient.

He says that it is hard to find meaning in the face of such tragedy, but that if we d... See more

The good life, it appeared, was still within reach, even when happiness and meaning weren’t.

To make the conceptual space of the well-lived life more inclusive, Oishi proposed the dimension of psychological richness . Characterized by a variety of novel, complex, and perspective-changing experiences (that weren’t necessarily happy or meaningful), t... See more

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spen... See more

The truly valuable skill is the one the three-to-four-hour rule helps to instill: not the capacity to push yourself harder but the capacity to stop and recuperate, despite the discomfort of knowing that the work remains unfinished.

The philosopher Kieran Setiya divides our activities into two categories: telic and atelic . Telic activities are those that we do for their end product. The purpose of telic activities is to get to the end. But atelic activities are those we do to do them. The purpose of atelic activities is that the process of doing them has value.

In my book, I ... See more

I was happy to stumble, a few months back, across the concept of MTO goalsetting, which fits perfectly here. For any goal you’re aiming to accomplish, this approach involves setting three levels of success: the Minimum, which you’re confident you’ll achieve; the Target, which is realistic but a bit of a stretch; and an Outrageous outcome, which you... See more

if the emphasis of a happy life is on positive emotions and security, and the emphasis of a meaningful life is on purpose and coherence, then the hallmarks of a psychologically rich life are variety, interest, and perspective (Oishi & Westgate, 2021)