A Rich Life Beyond Happiness
What makes a good life? Through my work in aged care, I’m fortunate to ponder this question regularly. It is common as people enter their final life chapter to analyse their lives and ask, ‘did I live a good life?’
When I first started working in this sector, I felt compelled to direct an elder’s attention to happy life stories, or assist them to view their life as mostly positive. I was subscribing to the hedonic pathway to the good life, and I so wanted to help them reach it. But then I learned to pause and listen longer. Although the stories were not always happy or indeed filled with profound meaning (the other well-known proposed pathway to the good life), they seemed to hold immense significance, power and depth. From disastrous holidays, challenging relocations, difficult social interactions to family upheaval, it is all part of a live well lived from the perspective of the elder living it.
Recently I discovered the concept of the psychologically rich life which helped me make sense of what I was seeing. First proposed by psychologist, Shigehiro Oishi et al as an alternative pathway to the good life, psychological richness is fuelled by curiosity and spontaneity rather than happiness or purpose. Here, a life composed of a series of complex, “interesting and perspective-shifting experiences”, places the good life within reach. The adventures my elders energetically describe as they reminisce allow for introspection, and transition through a wide and beautiful range of emotions – in other words enable them to find and connect with their psychologically rich lives.
Of course, a life devoid of any happiness or meaning could hardly be thought a good life. But in the deep conversations I have, psychological richness does seem to be an important complement. What appears to follow from this psychological richness is wisdom and profound knowing, which is a privilege to encounter (and something I’m always attempting to absorb!).
So my invitation to you, rather than marking the report card of your life only on what’s positive or purposeful, is to live with curiosity and open your perspective. By valuing a diversity of life events, you may just find yourself living the good life after all.