What Makes a Good Life?
Photo by Nattu.Some time ago now I came to realize that how we define particular words - success, happiness, love, etc - can have a major impact on the way in which we live our life. One term that I hear thrown around often is “good life”, eg “he lived a good life” . But what is a good life exactly? This term will mean different things to different people, and yet I believe there are some ingredients that all “good lives” share. Here are a some of these ingredients:
Being present in the moment
Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed. - Corita Kent
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. - Oscar Wilde
Gratefulness
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy - because we will always want to have something else or something more. - Brother David Steindl-Rast
Love
Love doesn’t make the world go ’round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile. - Franklin P. Jones
Life is the flower for which love is the honey. - Victor Hugo
A life lived for others
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchill
Squeezing the most out of our time
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln
… we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. - Paul Bowles
Living with purpose
The purpose of life is a life of purpose. - Robert Byrne
Acceptance that life will bring sadness
There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. - Carl Jung
Living without fear
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. - Dorothy Thompson
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain
Not taking life too seriously
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. - Elbert Hubbard
Do you have a quote that you would like to share? Or perhaps even your own definition of what a “good life” is? Please share it in the comments below….
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15 Comments
May 30th, 2008 at 6:17 am
[...] What Makes a Good Life? [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I love this definition of a “good life” through the use of quotes! A couple that I like from Ghandi -
“You must be the change you want to see in the world”
“Happiness is when what you think, whay you say, and what you do are in harmony”.
Thanks for sharing this.
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May 30th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Great quotes. Couple i like is:
Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid of standing still.
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May 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
What a beautiful post. I have a “Grateful Moment” each nite where I just say what I’m grateful for in my life.
Thanks so much for reminding us what life is really all about.
Bill
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May 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Excellent, Peter. Thank you for enriching my afternoon.
Sometimes Saintly Nicks last blog post..Alex Visits Caryl
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May 30th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
These are some pretty nice quotes in the article. Since you asked, I’d like to throw one more in the mix. This was a quote from a very good friend of mine:
“Don’t get so caught up with making a living that you forget to make a life.”
Al at 7Ps last blog post..Work Smarter, Not Harder: The Min-Max Rule
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May 30th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Love these quotes and very inspiring on what makes a good life. A quote I’ve always loved is:
“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ~~ John Wayne
Thanks for giving us food for thought on how to live a good life.
Blessings,
Pat Rs last blog post..The Little Things
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May 31st, 2008 at 9:36 am
[...] Strives for Excellence How To Live The Good LifeWhat Makes a Good Life? [...]
May 31st, 2008 at 9:47 am
Great post. I love your selection of quotes. To me a good life is one that enables you to live what you love. And I’m very grateful for people like Bob and Melinda Blanchard for providing a system such as the one in their book Changing Your Course, that is teaching me how to do just that.
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June 1st, 2008 at 6:01 am
Peter,
Great quotes. Here’s one I would like to add. It’s from my friend Alik @practicethis.com
“We don’t see the things the way they are. We see things the way WE are.”
- Talmund
Simple yet very powerful.
Shilpan | successsoul.coms last blog post..How I Transformed My Life with These 5 Simple Thoughts
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June 5th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Quotes certainly do add so much to life! The gives us tons of motivation and inspiration to fulfill small everyday tasks to our wildest dreams. Great article!
Dr. KC
http://www.DOCintheBiz.com
http://www.GLCzone.com
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June 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Hi Peter,
Another excellent article.
To me,Good Life is doing what i love to do,being with family,helping others to realize their dreams.
In your whole life,if you touch atleast some lives meaningfully,you have lived a Good life.
Best wishes,
Kannan Viswagandhi
http://www.growing-self.blogspot.com
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June 10th, 2008 at 12:17 am
The cinic is a man, who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing… Oscar Wild
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I would add one from the Harry Potter series that Professor Dumbledore said…
“It is not our abilities that make us great; it is our choices.”
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June 15th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
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