KEEP IT interesting

It's a question psychologists have spent years pondering: What makes for a good life? Is it the pursuit of pleasure, joy and happiness - or meaning, fulfilment and purpose? Most agree it's a combination of the two but new research suggests there's an elusive third element...

- LIESL ROBERTSON

We've been doing our utmost to tick all the boxes experts have identified, all in the pursuit of the good life. We are being mindful and we're meditating We're listening to podcasts about resilience and authenticity and optimism. We are volunteering. We are prioritising relationships and obsessively scribbling away in a gratitude journal...

So why does it still feel like something is missing?

Lorraine Besser is a professor of philosophy at Middlebury College in Vermont, New England. 'You've hit all the traditional markers, jumped on the happiness train, committed to a gratitude practice, sought purpose in your work, yet the Good Life you're seeking is still out of reach,' she writes. 'Emerging research is revealing that there is, in fact, more to the good life than the current and even ancient conversation suggests. This has been identified as psychological richness.'

Professor Besser is part of a research team headed by psychologist Dr Shigehiro Oishi, and has written a book on the subject, The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It.

'Maybe you've crashed and burned. Maybe the toils of the pandemic pushed you to confront the status of your life. Maybe you're not satisfied with happiness, or with meaning. Maybe you're simply ready to live a better life, right now. Maybe you know, deep in your gut, that there has to be more to life. I have good news: there is more to life.'

Just to be clear: no one is disputing the research surrounding happiness and purpose. What Dr Oishi and his team are saying is that in order to live a happy, meaningful and interesting life, you need to take a three-pronged approach. 'The Good Life is like a three-legged stool,' Prof Besser says. 'It needs the support of pleasure, fulfilment and the interesting.'