Happy Atheist Forum

Hello everyone,

What does it mean to live the good life?  Does it involve having lots of money, or just enough?  Good health or reasonably healthy?  What about falling in love?  Is falling in love part of the good life?  I feel that it is important for everyone at some point in their life to meet someone special and fall in love, if they are of opposite sex and not related to each other, then hopefully they will marry each other too, perhaps have children and help encourage the human race to try to replicate these wonderful experiences.  I believe part of being happy involves making money, it is fun to make money and probably is an essential ingredient to maintaing a life that is happy.  Although some people can have money and just be miserable too.
So what does living the good life mean to you?

Quote from: "Doubting Thomas29"Hello everyone,

What does it mean to live the good life?  Does it involve having lots of money, or just enough?  Good health or reasonably healthy?  What about falling in love?  Is falling in love part of the good life?  I feel that it is important for everyone at some point in their life to meet someone special and fall in love, if they are of opposite sex and not related to each other, then hopefully they will marry each other too, perhaps have children and help encourage the human race to try to replicate these wonderful experiences.  I believe part of being happy involves making money, it is fun to make money and probably is an essential ingredient to maintaing a life that is happy.  Although some people can have money and just be miserable too.
So what does living the good life mean to you?

Whatever makes you happy. I don't think money would make me happy, not that I am averse (out of purely academic interest) to trying.

I think what I really want is happiness and love ... almost everything else is negotiable.

Kyu

Quote from: "Doubting Thomas29"What does it mean to live the good life?

Living the best you can. Chasing a dream or two. Doing what makes you feel happy, content or fulfilled.  

I suppose it depends on whom you ask. Gandhi and the Marquis de Sade would give entirely different answers, methinks.  

Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"I suppose it depends on whom you ask. Gandhi and the Marquis de Sade would give entirely different answers, methinks.  

My feelings exactly. The "good life" means something different to everybody. There is no definition outlining it.

There's a book out there that answers this question perfectly:

To Have Or To Be? - Erich Fromm

Quote from: "Sophus"There's a book out there that answers this question perfectly:

To Have Or To Be? - Erich Fromm

Nice, Sophus.

To me, the good life is life with family and friends and a personal sense of purpose. Those simple ingredients can carry me through any rough patch in my health, fortune, or outlook. I also find that continuing education, travel, and a nice glass of wine sweeten things up for me. Money smooths things out, makes everything easier, and gives one a (false) sense of security, but it is of no value as a goal. It's a tool, that's all.

Quote from: "Wraitchel"Nice, Sophus.

Oh wow. Have I finally met someone else familiar with Fromm?

I think the secret to happiness isn't doing what you like, but like what you are doing!

Quote from: "Doubting Thomas29"I think the secret to happiness isn't doing what you like, but like what you are doing!

Catchy, but then don't they become the same thing?  Also, is this to suggest you should shred any desire to do anything different and settle for what you have, perverting it into what you always wanted?

Or maybe you just mean to keep following your dreams, but to enjoy it every step of the way.  That's not hard, and I think a lot of people do just that in hindsight.  There will always be rough patches, things that the passage of time won't have smoothed over, but in general, I think we all look back fondly on the paths we've taken, even when we weren't so happy with them in the present.

My answer to the question of the thread would be close to Wraitchels, so I'll spare any readers the repeat.  

Quote from: "PipeBox"Catchy, but then don't they become the same thing?  Also, is this to suggest you should shred any desire to do anything different and settle for what you have, perverting it into what you always wanted?

That gave me a giggle, Pipebox! I've always detested those greeting-card sentiments that tell you how to live. I once had a room-mate in college who hung them all over her walls. When they crept across the line onto my side, I patiently removed them and stuck them back on her side. She had one about how teddy bears make the best friends. I created a parody of that one and hung it over my bed. I was a little bit evil in my youth (and I believed in God then.)

You're supposed to find your own way in this life, in my opinion. That belief, and giving myself permission to fail...nay, the imperative to fail is another key to my sense of joy.

Sophus, I have enjoyed Fromm. I also enjoyed Erikson, Piaget, and Jung. Jung is still my favorite, though. I love the mystery of the archetypes and the strange ways in which dreams enrich our lives. I also enjoy Joseph Campbell. I used to be very interested in psychology and the humanities. Now I'm interested in biology, and am really enjoying taking Anatomy and Physiology at a local community college. Where's the bookworm emoticon? I'm the biggest nerd I know.

This reminded me of this thread.  

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages43.fotki.com%2Fv1367%2Fphotos%2F8%2F892548%2F6145789%2F92093457-vi.jpg&hash=f78297bac04cbed465674f0b42a041bad5415fa8)

Quote from: "Wraitchel"That gave me a giggle, Pipebox! I've always detested those greeting-card sentiments that tell you how to live. I once had a room-mate in college who hung them all over her walls. When they crept across the line onto my side, I patiently removed them and stuck them back on her side. She had one about how teddy bears make the best friends. I created a parody of that one and hung it over my bed. I was a little bit evil in my youth (and I believed in God then.)

You almost certainly know about this site, but you might get kick out of the reversals of motivational posters.  
http://www.despair.com/achievement.html (http://www.despair.com/achievement.html)

I love despair.com!

You can even make your own unmotivational posters there.

Quote from: "Doubting Thomas29"Hello everyone,

What does it mean to live the good life?  Does it involve having lots of money, or just enough?  Good health or reasonably healthy?  What about falling in love?  Is falling in love part of the good life?  I feel that it is important for everyone at some point in their life to meet someone special and fall in love, if they are of opposite sex and not related to each other, then hopefully they will marry each other too, perhaps have children and help encourage the human race to try to replicate these wonderful experiences.  I believe part of being happy involves making money, it is fun to make money and probably is an essential ingredient to maintaing a life that is happy.  Although some people can have money and just be miserable too.
So what does living the good life mean to you?

The 'good life' consists in resolving or eliminating contradictions within one's psyche, apprehending one's motivations and bringing them under the control of one's reason.  Not the negation of passion, but the sublimation of passions to serve the further end of one's self.  Virtue is that which is cultivated to allow a person to live, feel, think and act without warring on herself.

One can not prescribe methods, because what means are appropriate for you may not be good for me; in other words virtue is not a list of categorical imperatives but the those traits which allow one to resolve the internal and external conflicts one has to deal with.

I think that to live a "good life" means to live one with a decent balance of the positive and the negative.

Change. Staticness makes for misery.

Okay I got a really good quote!

This is from Clarence Budington Kelland (1881 - 1964) an author of fiction.

"I believe I have discovered the one great, moving, compelling force which makes every man what he becomes in the end.

This, I believe, is the greatest force in the universe.  I believe all other causes are secondary to it.  It is so powerful that the slightest human effort cannot be put forth until it has done its work; and if it should suddenly be annihlated from the world, all activity would come to a stand still, and humanity would become a mass of automatons moving about in meaningless circles.

This force is not love; it is not religion; it is not virtue; it is not ambition - for none of these could exist an hour without it.... It is imagination."

I believe imagination is greater than money as being a tool to happiness and living the good life, dream it then be it!

Doubting thomas, I've half a mind to think you're definition and annaM's definition match up pretty well. Just from different sides.  

Quote from: "mDarkPoet"I think that to live a "good life" means to live one with a decent balance of the positive and the negative.

I agree, harmony, peace and balance.