My Map of a Good Life

Everyone wants a good life. But what does a good life mean? It can be different things to different people. To me, I find it hard to embrace an arbitary definition of good life, such as being rich, famous or successful. These common definitions lack connections with the everyday life I’m living. After a period of searching, I have found a set of thoughts that help me map out my idea of a good life. I want to formulate them clearly and share them here.

This page will be a living document of all the thoughts I have. I’ll edit it from time to time.

1. The Foundation of Life

Our being has no meaning in itself, but this meaninglessness does not render life not livable.

It means there is no reason to live, and no reason not to live.

To not to live (e.g., commit suicide) means simply ceasing to exist. There will be nothing more, neither positive things (e.g., having fun) nor negative things (e.g., experiencing pain).

To continue to live means I will have to experience both sides. Some people are averse to pain. But if we distinguish pain and suffering, pain isn’t bad at all.

There is not a should for either of them. So it is up to choice. The choice between commiting suicide now and continuing to live. My choice (at least for the moment) is to live.

2. The Essence of a Good Life

Humans are evolved to feel pleasure, pain and other emotions to help us survive.

The essence of a good life is to feel more positive experiences and less negative experiences.

The above statement is NOT:

• It is not about having no negative experiences in life; some pain are inevitable and in fact contribute to greater good in life when life is viewed as a whole
• It is not about short-term pleasure that brings bad experience at a later time

3. The Anatomy of Life

How does the above principle apply to life? We must first know what life actually contains.

First it comes work. It does not only mean the waged labour we have today, but every kind of activity that contribute primarily to the means of support of life, e.g., food, safe place (shelter), clothing against different weathers, etc.

Then there is relationship. Sociality gives humans and other animals an evolutionary advantage. It makes the work and survival much easier.

Also, an endless search of knowledge to make the whole survival simpler in other areas of life.

Although the modern life is drastically different from the prehistoric humans in the “natural” setting, it is not hard to spot that the constant parts of life still persists. Therefore, we can base off my definition of a good life on this understanding of life.

To be continued…