What qualities are needed for a life that flourishes?

Martin Seligman, psychologist, defines the 5 pillars of a meaningful life:

1. Positive Emotion i.e. well-being, happiness
2. Engagement: the deployment of one’s skills and attention to meet a challenge
3. Relationship: life-enhancing connections with others
4. Meaning: a sense of purpose derived from something/someone larger than oneself
5. Accomplishment: achievement, mastery, or success for its own sake.

As a result a person is more adjusted, more positive, healthier, more self-control and copes with life better. Not necessarily wealthier, but definitely happier than, say, those who have single-mindedly devoted a lifetime to the accumulation of wealth no matter the cost.

Where does one learn to have a meaningful life?

Parents can nurture strengths, perseverance, resilience at home. Schools can teach the skills for success in the workaday world. Companies can improve performance through training and setting up the environment to enhance employee well-being. Communities can encourage volunteerism.

The search for meaning dates back as early 60,000 years ago when Neanderthals in Europe buried their dead. 32,400 years ago when Cro-Magnons (Homo sapiens) did the earliest cave paintings. 5000 years ago with the earliest written words from Egypt and Mesopotamia. 4000 years ago, when the Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest story of human beginnings, was narrated.

On the other hand

About 2,000 years ago, a Greek-influenced Jew had a dramatic encounter with Jesus, long after the crucifixion. The experience converted Paul, now convinced that God had a made a new covenant not just with Jews, but also with the rest of humanity. Everyone was now welcome to appropriate this new reality, which he called New Creation — peace with God, self, others, and nature.

This new mode of existence, and “more excellent way” of living, has three essential pillars: faith, hope and love. Faith, the inner knowing that gives meaning to this present moment. Hope, the energy within that prevails over fear of what is to come — despair, and nothingness. And Love, the personal orientation which compels one away from self towards Christ in the other person — transforming relationships into something happily practical, ethical, and free of malice.

Categories: Uncategorized

ernestoabella