While the history of psychology is most often associated with studies of illnesses and neuroses, there has been a growing movement in the field to focus instead on building wellness. This turn toward ordinary people to ask how they (or we) could live better is often called Positive Psychology.
In college I studied philosophy and took up a special interest in ethics. Philosophers throughout time have asked the question of “how can I live a good life?” and answers to this have often come in the form of ethical treatises. For Socrates, the pursuit of ultimate wisdom and self-knowledge was at the heart of an ethical life. All of us can and should question what we know and who we are, to the point of admitting that we don’t really know much of anything at all.
For Aristotle, who studied under Socrates’ student, Plato, this was but one path to a moral life. For him, this was too much in the head. Instead of just developing a theory of unknowing, he suggested that a good life required the practice of living well through the leadership of virtuous teachers and elders. For Aristotle, a good life must be actively lived and thus required guidance from others. He devised guidelines for developing virtues, but emphasized that we need to build the skills ourselves to actually be ethical.
Positive Psychology
Over 2000 years later, psychology emerged as a field in its own and has slowly taken up similar debates about our mental and emotional health and well-being. In the 1980s, psychologist Carol Ryff developed a theory of measuring mental well-being with a six-factored scale. The Ryff Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS), as it came to be called, looked at Personal Growth, Positive Relationships, Environmental Mastery, Life Purpose, Self-Acceptance, and Autonomy.
Respondents are generally asked to rate how they feel about their life on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 indicating difficulties in each area and 6 indicating strong positive feelings. Certainly, as we pass through life’s major events: from relationships to jobs to living in new places, each of these is impacted. The question always is, how much and how many are suffering. Few of us will ever feel that everything is perfect in all six, but we might feel pretty good in most or all of them.
Differing Models
In a recent study done by researchers at the University of Girona and the University of Lleida in Spain, this six-factored approach was narrowed down to just three key areas. What they found was that a life well-lived consisted of developing just self-acceptance, life purpose, and environmental mastery.
Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. suggests that based on this, we can touch base on just four key questions, asking:
- Most of the time, do I feel proud of who I am and the life I lead?
- In general, do I feel positive and confident about myself?
- Do I enjoy making plans for the future and working to make them a reality?
- In general, do I feel I am in charge of the situation in which I live?
Assessing our Well-being
It can be striking how similar these are to questions philosophers have asked for ages. Developing a sense of pride in ourselves requires us to have self-knowledge about the kind of person we would like to be.
This life is often created in our younger years, some would say by the time we are 7 or 8 years old. It is this early period in our lives when we most deeply imprint idealized visions of the adults around us. Others look more to our teen years, when we begin to grapple with the realization that we too are growing to become an adult. But throughout our life, we can continue to ask questions about who we are and what kind of person we would like to be. What qualities do we want to have?
Developing our confidence can be incredibly difficult. Many of us grow up with low self esteem and it can take years to break free of this. Not only that, the last 20 years has been crisis after crisis: wars, the economy, global warming, and more. It is easy to feel lost and uncertain about ourselves and the world we live in.
If we’re lucky, we develop some interests in our teens or 20s that become our passions later in life. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get a job doing these, sometimes they just have to be a hobby we pursue on the side. Either way, they can be a powerful source of positivity and confidence in our lives.
Making plans for the future should be a source of joy. However, the pandemic has thrown countless wrenches in most of our plans. For my wife and I, having an infant (now a toddler) over the pandemic has made planning even more difficult. Nonetheless, we have been able to plan things like small social gatherings outdoors and family gatherings (after a period of self-quarantine or when case-numbers were low and we could do self-tests).
Finally, feeling “in charge” is deeply important. In our jobs, many people see self-direction as the number one factor of being happy. No amount of pay or benefits can make up for having an over-bearing boss or overwhelming workload. We all need to be able to control, to some extent, our lives on a daily basis. At home, too, it just feels good to be able to choose our surroundings (how we decorate, what we buy to eat, whether we have a TV or radio on, etc).
Whether we think about these before meditating, while journaling, in a conversation with our partner, or at a therapy session, the insights gained from touching base with these key questions can open new paths toward happiness.
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. He lives in Missoula with his family.