Without Your Life Purpose, What Are You?
On the importance of self-directed values.
What constitutes “a good life?” What would need to happen for you to believe that your life was worthwhile?
Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have been grappling with this question for years:
- around 290BC, Epicurus identified the good life with finding happiness and inner tranquillity
- and in 340BC, Aristotle identified the good life as aligning with living virtuously.
Naturally, most of us think that happiness defines a good life. For those that commit to certain versions of Utilitarianism, happiness is the only intrinsic good — and anything else is only worthwhile in so far as it leads to it.
As it turns out, what determines how well feel our lives have gone has nothing to do with happiness. According to Psychologists, what causes feelings of despair isn’t a lack of happiness — it’s a lack of meaning and purpose.
Have we been chasing the wrong thing all these years? Why do we crave happiness so badly, when we could live quite contently without it?
“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.” ―Winston S. Churchill
