I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to live a life worth living. Over my years of study, reflection, and some experience I think I have landed on one of the key ingredients.
The keystone factor in living a life worth living is that YOU must see it is worth living.
You’re right, this is simple to say but deeply complicated to unpack. So here is a framework to get started with.
Let’s start with a question: Are you satisfied with where you are and where you are going, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially?
If you can honestly say “yes” to all the aspects of this question, I would bet that you have a solid sense that you are living a life worth living. Congrats, that is awesome. Please tell us how you got there!
If you said “no” to any (or all) of these then you are likely looking at your life as a challenging set of experiences, trials, and troubles that must be endured. That’s hard, I’ve been there… I get it. But you can also look at these specific areas in your life as places in which you can focus your energy and efforts to change and grow. To move towards finding and living a life YOU see as worth living.
If you’re like me (and a lot of other people) your answers might be much more complicated than a simple yes or no. My answers tend to include a lot of caveats like:
It depends…
Sometimes, but…
Maybe if…
Not since…
It’s not that simple…
While these answers aren’t as clear, they are fertile ground for finding insights into what we can change inorder to move towards the life we want to live. Having identified fertile ground is awesome, we know we can grow there but we’re going to have to prepare the soil by weeding out problematic thinking.
Doing the work is part of building a life worth living. You are in control of it. You get to decide. As you continue to do the work, take time to reassess. I won’t be surprised if you find your answers to the question start to shift and change until one day you will look at your life as an example of one that is worth living.
