A Strategy for a Good Life

Nobody lives a good life on accident. Living a good life, just like building a profitable business, building practical wisdom, and building a beautiful body requires a strategy—a system that will get you where you want to go. But what does a strategy for living a good life look like?           

So that we may arrive at a meaningful conclusion, we must begin by getting clear on what we mean by a good life. Is it just some elusive psychological ideal that is inherently unrealizable, or is a good life something within our reach? After some contemplation, I have come to think the latter.  

Any good life must necessarily arise out of a robust theory of value. While such underlying theories of value may come in various forms and be of completely different natures, they nevertheless are required for us to form any practical conception of a good life. After all, to determine what kind of life is good, we must necessarily have established what kinds of things can be or are good and under what conditions. 

After having accepted a theory of value, we must then proceed by supplementing with a theory of right action. That is, given our theory of value (i.e., given what we think can be good under a certain set of conditions) what kinds of actions are right? In other words, what the heck should we do? Given that we face a multitude of options in almost any life situation, we need a theory to determine what kinds of actions we should take and most importantly why we should take them. 

If we have accepted a theory of value (i.e., a metric for determining what kinds of things are good and under what conditions) and a theory of right action (i.e., a metric for determining what the right thing to do is), we have construed a system for living a good life. Simply put, a good life is a life where we get more of the good stuff—the things we truly value.

Now, I realize the above is very abstract. I want you to know that I tried to keep it as abstract as possible, so that it may serve as your guide for living your own conception of a good life. Theories of value and right action come in many different forms and shapes and some are more complicated than others. Philosophers have spent thousands of years arguing over various theories of value and right action. But to live a good life that is hardly necessary. What is necessary, however, is getting clear on what you value and what actions you should take to get more of the good stuff.  

Again, in an effort to supply you with a framework for thinking about these two questions, I have kept this post as abstract as possible. I hope it can serve as a starting point for deliberations about what you value in life and how you should act in light of what you value. After all, to live a good life you need a robust system that will get you there—a strategy. I hope this post will assist you in crafting a strategy for living your very own conception of a good life.