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Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
" Life Worth Living is transcendent. A collection of wisdom punctuated by questions of great consequence, this is the only book you need to find your way from where you are to where you are called to be."
--Kelly Corrigan,ÌýNYT bestselling author, host of Kelly Corrigan Wonders and PBS’s Tell Me More
Based on the Yale class, a guide to defining and then creating a flourishing life, and answering one of life’s most pressing how are we to live?
What makes a good life? The question is inherent to the human condition, asked by people across generations, professions, and social classes, and addressed by all schools of philosophy and religions. This search for meaning, as Yale faculty Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz argue, is at the crux of a crisis that is facing Western culture, a crisis that, they propose, can be ameliorated by searching, in one’s own life, for the underlying truth.Ìý
In A Life Worth Living , named after its authors� highly sought-after undergraduate course, Volf, Croasmun, and McAnnally-Linz chart out this question, providing readers with jumping-off points, road maps, and habits of reflection for figuring out where their lives hold meaning and where things need to change.
Drawing from the major world religions and from impressively truthful and courageous secular figures, A Life Worth Living is a guide to life’s most pressing question, the one asked of all of How are we to live?
" Life Worth Living is transcendent. A collection of wisdom punctuated by questions of great consequence, this is the only book you need to find your way from where you are to where you are called to be."
--Kelly Corrigan,ÌýNYT bestselling author, host of Kelly Corrigan Wonders and PBS’s Tell Me More
Based on the Yale class, a guide to defining and then creating a flourishing life, and answering one of life’s most pressing how are we to live?
What makes a good life? The question is inherent to the human condition, asked by people across generations, professions, and social classes, and addressed by all schools of philosophy and religions. This search for meaning, as Yale faculty Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz argue, is at the crux of a crisis that is facing Western culture, a crisis that, they propose, can be ameliorated by searching, in one’s own life, for the underlying truth.Ìý
In A Life Worth Living , named after its authors� highly sought-after undergraduate course, Volf, Croasmun, and McAnnally-Linz chart out this question, providing readers with jumping-off points, road maps, and habits of reflection for figuring out where their lives hold meaning and where things need to change.
Drawing from the major world religions and from impressively truthful and courageous secular figures, A Life Worth Living is a guide to life’s most pressing question, the one asked of all of How are we to live?
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2023
1,018 people are currently reading
9,139 people want to read
About the author
Miroslav Volf
70Ìýbooks314ÌýfollowersMiroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. “One of the most celebrated theologians of our time,â€� (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury), Volf is a leading expert on religion and conflict. His recent books include Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities, and Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation—winner of the 2002 Grawmeyer Award in Religion.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 183 reviews
April 22, 2023
This book essentially walks you through an extremely popular course at Yale University taught by the three authors that helps students discover for themselves a life worth living. The authors rely on sources from Buddha and Confucius through Jesus and Mohammed to contemporary thinkers to help us sort out what is really important in life and how to focus on those important issues. My only complaint was that it often seemed (as indeed it is) aimed at people in their early 20's and perhaps deals with issues 70 year old's like me have already decided.
May 21, 2023
Think about one or two people who you deeply admire.
Does long, happy, healthy describe their lives?
Regardless of whether you believe in it, do you think eternal life would be desirable?
If you knew that you and those that you cared about would live forever what, if anything, would still give this life meaning?
Are there people or ideals that you would be willing to die for?
Your life is worth living. It is valuable. It’s invaluable. Your life is worth living well. Your life is too valuable to be guided by anything less than what matters most.
Live for what matters most. Build your life around it.
Does long, happy, healthy describe their lives?
Regardless of whether you believe in it, do you think eternal life would be desirable?
If you knew that you and those that you cared about would live forever what, if anything, would still give this life meaning?
Are there people or ideals that you would be willing to die for?
Your life is worth living. It is valuable. It’s invaluable. Your life is worth living well. Your life is too valuable to be guided by anything less than what matters most.
Live for what matters most. Build your life around it.
March 31, 2023
I started listening to the audio version of the book the day it was released. I really enjoyed this thought provoking book. The authors do an excellent job of explaining complex philosophical ideas and breaking them down into manageable pieces for the reader or listener to consider. I especially appreciated the wide variety of examples and stories they shared. This is a great book for college age and up, I think high school age would struggle a little bit. Would be great for a church adult education series or a book group.
March 2, 2025
I suspect that the Yale course is much more engaging and provocative than the book. It certainly isn’t bad, and it offers a pretty broad survey of philosophy � not super deep though. If you’ve thought about life/religion/meaning before, then this book will probably not teach you much. It definitely pointed to some authors and thinkers I hadn’t heard of, which was cool. Discussing this in an OC course with a bunch of other burnt out seniors � who may or may not have read the book � was not very stimulating though.
March 22, 2024
Very confused by the negative reviews. This is a near-perfect book given its goals; I’ll probably use this as an Introduction to Philosophy (or Ethics) guidebook in the future, supplemented by additional primary source and scholarly readings.
I like that this book is charting alongside the eternal slew of self-help books, and even has the aesthetic of one of them, but it has a seriousness and authenticity that confronts the self-help industry in just the way that philosophers need to—not pretentiously, but critically.
I like that this book is charting alongside the eternal slew of self-help books, and even has the aesthetic of one of them, but it has a seriousness and authenticity that confronts the self-help industry in just the way that philosophers need to—not pretentiously, but critically.
June 25, 2023
I listened to this on audible and love it so much. I needed the provocation for thinking about the meaning of life and how to think deep thoughts. I appreciated the questions to ask that they provided at the end of each chapter. This is an exceptionally well done philosophy of living.
October 30, 2024
A good read (haha goodread) for the both the curious and the settled. Posing the meaning of life as the capital-Q ‘Question,� the book takes measured steps to bring you through the valley of self-discovery and self-transcendence and ushers you safely upwards on the other side. It invites you into a discussion regarding the Questions that either plague one’s life or provide it a guiding standard - or maybe both at times.
What is life, what isn’t it, what makes it right, what makes it good, what is it worth, and what makes it worth it? All of these are examined through a slightly-too-religious-for-my-taste lens, but those examples still provide ideals which can serve as a basis for self discovery. I liked the look at several different religions and cultures and examining what they perceive as ultimate ideals in life, or simply their interpretations of it too.
Something else I enjoyed with this book - for as much as it discusses the Question - is that it doesn’t provide one. The Question is personal, ever changing, and serves every individual differently. This book, instead, provides you with the concept of a Question and the tools for you to engage in self-discussion to determine what your Question is and how you can answer it.
For such potentially heavy topics (they do discuss finding meaning in death in this book as well), it wasn’t a complex read. Those with some practice/interest in philosophy or theology would have no issue following along, nor would anyone who is prepared to engage with some frankly existential questions. I recommend this book if you want answers, want to figure out your Question, or just want to wonder about life without worrying you’ll come up empty.
4/5🎢
What is life, what isn’t it, what makes it right, what makes it good, what is it worth, and what makes it worth it? All of these are examined through a slightly-too-religious-for-my-taste lens, but those examples still provide ideals which can serve as a basis for self discovery. I liked the look at several different religions and cultures and examining what they perceive as ultimate ideals in life, or simply their interpretations of it too.
Something else I enjoyed with this book - for as much as it discusses the Question - is that it doesn’t provide one. The Question is personal, ever changing, and serves every individual differently. This book, instead, provides you with the concept of a Question and the tools for you to engage in self-discussion to determine what your Question is and how you can answer it.
For such potentially heavy topics (they do discuss finding meaning in death in this book as well), it wasn’t a complex read. Those with some practice/interest in philosophy or theology would have no issue following along, nor would anyone who is prepared to engage with some frankly existential questions. I recommend this book if you want answers, want to figure out your Question, or just want to wonder about life without worrying you’ll come up empty.
4/5🎢
March 4, 2025
I read this for class and didn’t like it. The philosophy is extremely basic, "what you do in your day makes up your life!" - (duh) something that feels obvious. On top of that, it tries to give a broad overview of different philosophies, which just ends up watering all of them down. It’s probably a good book for class discussions, but I doubt many of my classmates actually finished it (most admitted they hadn’t and had to copy off my worksheet). Overall, it’s repetitive, uninspiring, and doesn’t say anything new. blegh. it's ok, just not for me.
October 5, 2024
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Kelly Corrigan to follow along on a discussion with her, Kate Bowler and Claire Danes. Kate Bowler interviews Volf here:
The title is based on a class that has been taught for years at Yale University, asking the question what makes a good life or what makes life matter? Is it simply being healthy, happy and successful as the world views? It looks at everything from different world religions to beliefs held by thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and others to stories of visiting professors to the course.
I can see how this course helps students to think about how they might think about their lives differently.
Notes
Ch 2 “what if ultimately, you answer to God for the shape of your life, how would your life have to change?�
Ch 4 “the trouble with pleasure isn’t that it feels good, it’s that we get invested in it feeling good. It draws our attention from what really matters. It drives us to have an exaggerated concern for ourselves and for what will satisfy our cravings.�
Ch 4 “a good life must include a sizable dose of pain� what the good life - whatever’s true to life in all its splendor, all its suffering and everything in between.� �
“How a good life feels has to do with getting in sync with something deep about the world, not just getting what we want.�
� being rightly attuned with the world.
Ch 11 “I hope that you will have a vision of life that will sustain you in the moments, on the pavement. There will likely be a day when the world stops and your heart breaks and you will need a vision of a life worth living that will survive the storm. Surely your vision will be deepened, transformed, sharpened by the days on the pavement. But I hope you vision has an � anchor that will hold you.�
Ch 13 deeds are the roots, wisdom the branches. Wisdom grows out of the goodness of life. The two mutually nourish each other, like the roots and branches of a tree. But it’s our practices, not our good ideas that keep us rooted.
Ch 14 “you are not your problem� you are finding in your work and in your life the possibility of becoming an individual in the truest sense of the world. Your problem is the weight of the world’s expectation. That double disappointment you feel, that’s the true individual within you waking up to the tragedy of living for someone else’s dream.
Epilogue
“Much more likely that you might, despite your best intentions, live a trivial life� let it slip by, focused on other things.�
Influence, wealth, power claim to matter
Meaningful career - cheap imitation of what truly matters most
The world can tell us we are succeeding but we won’t realize unless we are asking the question
What matters most won’t clamor for your attention; stick with it, make space for the question, return to it again and again
The title is based on a class that has been taught for years at Yale University, asking the question what makes a good life or what makes life matter? Is it simply being healthy, happy and successful as the world views? It looks at everything from different world religions to beliefs held by thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and others to stories of visiting professors to the course.
I can see how this course helps students to think about how they might think about their lives differently.
Notes
Ch 2 “what if ultimately, you answer to God for the shape of your life, how would your life have to change?�
Ch 4 “the trouble with pleasure isn’t that it feels good, it’s that we get invested in it feeling good. It draws our attention from what really matters. It drives us to have an exaggerated concern for ourselves and for what will satisfy our cravings.�
Ch 4 “a good life must include a sizable dose of pain� what the good life - whatever’s true to life in all its splendor, all its suffering and everything in between.� �
“How a good life feels has to do with getting in sync with something deep about the world, not just getting what we want.�
� being rightly attuned with the world.
Ch 11 “I hope that you will have a vision of life that will sustain you in the moments, on the pavement. There will likely be a day when the world stops and your heart breaks and you will need a vision of a life worth living that will survive the storm. Surely your vision will be deepened, transformed, sharpened by the days on the pavement. But I hope you vision has an � anchor that will hold you.�
Ch 13 deeds are the roots, wisdom the branches. Wisdom grows out of the goodness of life. The two mutually nourish each other, like the roots and branches of a tree. But it’s our practices, not our good ideas that keep us rooted.
Ch 14 “you are not your problem� you are finding in your work and in your life the possibility of becoming an individual in the truest sense of the world. Your problem is the weight of the world’s expectation. That double disappointment you feel, that’s the true individual within you waking up to the tragedy of living for someone else’s dream.
Epilogue
“Much more likely that you might, despite your best intentions, live a trivial life� let it slip by, focused on other things.�
Influence, wealth, power claim to matter
Meaningful career - cheap imitation of what truly matters most
The world can tell us we are succeeding but we won’t realize unless we are asking the question
What matters most won’t clamor for your attention; stick with it, make space for the question, return to it again and again
May 21, 2023
Well, I made it midway through chapter seven and I'm done. Yay ! In my opinion, this is a classroom text book and not meant to be read solo. The "Agency ' "Stoics" "The Way " ??? I'm so confused.
Sorry
Sorry
June 21, 2023
I didn’t finish the book. I simply could not get through it. I tried for about 75 pages and gave up. So boring
January 3, 2024
No real answers, lots of circling around points
Whats the purpose
Whats the purpose
May 21, 2024
Got the privilege to hear one of the authors (Miroslav Volf) speak to our final Titans class, and he was gracious enough to give each of us a copy of his latest book.
I thought it was super well written, you can tell they are super smart and it’s a well researched book. Objectively this is a great book and provides a lot of reflective points that I think are important for everyone to think through if they want to have a meaningful life. They also draw from multiple different religions, schools of thought, and famous thinkers which brings multiple different perspectives to the table. They also do a good job of not answering any questions for you, they want the reader to reflect and understand what they see as a life worth living which I really respect!
I just think for me I can’t give it 5 stars just because at times it didn’t pertain to me as much. Through Gods grace I have been given a purpose and an identity which means that a lot of these questions are inherently solved within the realm of Christianity (which is awesome). But I think for Christians and non Christians alike this is a good book that helps provide some reflection for your life!
I thought it was super well written, you can tell they are super smart and it’s a well researched book. Objectively this is a great book and provides a lot of reflective points that I think are important for everyone to think through if they want to have a meaningful life. They also draw from multiple different religions, schools of thought, and famous thinkers which brings multiple different perspectives to the table. They also do a good job of not answering any questions for you, they want the reader to reflect and understand what they see as a life worth living which I really respect!
I just think for me I can’t give it 5 stars just because at times it didn’t pertain to me as much. Through Gods grace I have been given a purpose and an identity which means that a lot of these questions are inherently solved within the realm of Christianity (which is awesome). But I think for Christians and non Christians alike this is a good book that helps provide some reflection for your life!
March 25, 2024
The three authors teach a course of the same name at Yale. They have taken years of teaching the course (since 2016, I think) and written this book. The big question of a life worth living is may be asked like this: "What matters most? What is a good life? What is the shape of flourishing life? What kind of life is worthy of our humanity? What is true life? What is right and true and good?" Drawing on various faith and philosophical perspectives, they authors guide you through answering these questions for yourself. It is YOUR life after all and "...how you life, what you devote your life to, how you're treated and how you treat others, what you set your hopes on and how you feel - all this is significant."
April 9, 2024
What an interesting book!! While originally a course at Yale, these three professors did a great job in translating it into a book. I wish I had read this with another person or book club to discuss the end of chapter questions rather than to simply self-reflect and journal. The book does a great job of highlighting famous and lesser known influential voices from history, and reminds us that “the conditions for happiness are already here.� The book left me with much food for thought and challenges for the future as I gear up for post-grad decision-making. I would recommend to anyone who has the capacity to dig deep and really mull over the words! Not exactly a light one, but worth it.
June 6, 2023
Though the authors are Christian they give robust summaries of other religious traditions. The trivial life is a greater danger to most of us than an evil life. Ignatius of Loyola's Examen framework brings together courage, reflection and penance. A good life is one that both has a telos and takes life seriously (Western religion) but also detaches from ego and see all things as transient (Eastern religion).
September 29, 2023
An excellent read. Something I will read and read for years to come.
November 9, 2023
A very dense book with some good takeaways.
March 8, 2024
maybe should have taken my time with this one! there were a lot of prompts for journaling and reflecting that I might need to come back to and give it more attention and discernment.
August 22, 2024
Pretty philosophical, introduced me to lots of traditions and ways of thought. Brings up the important questions on how to live the good life and guides you on how to answer for your individual life.
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July 20, 2023Discover some of the best answers to life’s biggest questions.
When you think about “the good life,� what springs to mind? Does the phrase conjure up images of yachts, exclusive restaurants, designer clothes, champagne on ice and endless days of sun-soaked leisure? Somewhere along the way, we’ve come to equate the good life with that of the moneyed high life, and this might be a problem. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the comforts that money can buy, are these the things we should be striving for in life?
In the sections that follow we’ll try to get at what the authors call “the Question.� Part of that question is, What’s really worth wanting? What should we hope for? And, how should we live? That’s right. We’ll be getting into some heady philosophical territory in this book. So, if you’re ready, let’s dive in.
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The Question with Many Answers
If you’re reading or listening to these words, there’s a good chance you’re alive. We can all agree on that, right? But what does it mean to be alive? What responsibilities, if any, does this gift come with? Here we begin to find ourselves at a point of divergence, for there are many schools of thought on what it means to live a good and ethically sound life.
Whether or not we have responsibilities as human beings is part of what the authors call “the Question.� Really, the Question is made up of many different, interconnected questions, such as: What matters most? What does a flourishing life look like? And, who do we answer to?
Before we dig into the philosophical and theological ideas behind the Question, let’s look at the process we’ll be taking along the way. We can start by considering one of the biggest parts of the Question: What is worth wanting?
You can think of the process as something akin to a deep-sea dive. You want to go down, past the realm of automatic, reflexive action, and proceed through self-reflection in order to reach self-transcendence. Here, we can determine what you see when you think of a full and flourishing life. Remember, we’re not asking, “What do I want?� But rather, “What is worth wanting.� What would make life fulfilling and meaningful to you?
Now, as with any deep-sea dive, once you discover what is truly worth wanting you have to come back to the surface. Back to action. This is important because the point is to live a life that reflects this understanding. Sure, you might be able to tell people what’s important to you, but do your actions support your words?
Before we move on, let’s look at one more fundamental part of the Question: Who are we responsible to? To frame it another way, you might ask yourself: Are my actions subject to judgment?
This is an essential question because it will help you to spot the differences in the various philosophical and theological theories that we’ll touch upon. As you might imagine, this question can also be answered in different ways.
As a handy shortcut, the authors use the old Smokey the Bear saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires,� to highlight the three primary modes of responsibility.
First is the “only you� part. In this scenario, you are the primary agent of responsibility. But then there’s the forest, which you can think of as the sphere of your responsibility � your family, your community, the world around you. Finally, there’s old Smokey himself. He’s the authoritative figure. The rule giver and the judge. If you want to make meaningful choices in life, you’ll want to at least consider all three of these responsibilities: yourself, those around you, and the possibility of a higher power.
In the next sections we’ll start to look at some more compelling visions of the good life, and see how the great philosophical and theological minds answer the Question.
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Pleasure, Pain, Freedom, and Indifference
In this section we’ll look at some of the most influential philosophies on life, like utilitarianism, Stoicism and Buddhism, as well as some other religions and a few more modern sources of wisdom.
It’s worth noting that the authors aren’t prescribing any one idea over another. Rather, they all have valuable insights that may or may not help you form your own vision of a good, meaningful, and flourishing life. You can think of it like making a recipe. It’s about finding the right ingredients that can harmonize and work together.
Let’s start with utilitarianism. In a way, utilitarianism offers a sensible answer to the question, “What does it feel like to live a good life?� Jeremy Bentham, who offered up this philosophy in 1822, provided a straightforward dichotomy. As he saw it, actions that result in pleasure, or allow us to avoid pain, are good. Actions that result in pain, or take away pleasure, are bad.
Bentham was also something of an anti-snob. He didn’t create a hierarchy of pleasure. There was no distinction between parlor games and a Beethoven symphony, so long as both generated pleasure to the individuals in question.
This supports the view of self-responsibility. The person having the experience is the ultimate judge of whether it is good or bad. But one important distinction is that Bentham believed we also had a responsibility to increase the pleasure of others. His vision was for nations to enact constitutions that would promote pleasure and minimize pain.
But is pleasure what we should really be focusing on? And are all pleasures of equal value? And is pain really that bad?
In 1895, the playwright Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in jail under England’s laws against so-called “acts of gross indecency.� While in prison, he wrote a self-reflective work entitled De Profundis, wherein Wilde reevaluated his previous devotion to pleasure. He didn’t regret anything, but he now viewed some pleasures as more “senseless� than others. The pleasures provided by nature were more valuable than the pleasures provided by fame.
On top of that, Wilde also realized the importance of sorrow and recognized how much he’d been avoiding what he called the “supreme emotion.� He now understood that sorrow was a fundamental component to everything in life. Disappointments and heartbreaks happen everyday, all around us. There’s nothing bad about this, it’s simply the truth, and the truth is beautiful. So, when we feel sorrow, we’re in touch with this reality in a profound way. Now he believed that you couldn’t live a good life without feeling and connecting to this sorrow.
Buddhism also teaches us that pleasure is more of a distraction than a goal. All suffering, as Buddha saw it, stems from craving. We crave pleasure, fame, wealth, power, and we form such attachments that even the thought of losing these things can bring about suffering. Buddha went the extreme route. He starved himself on one grain of rice a day. But he eventually saw “a middle way� that meant neither extravagance nor denial. He realized that the things we crave are not the problem. It’s the craving itself.
When Buddha achieved transcendence, he still felt pain, but it didn’t cause suffering because he had detached himself from his need for pleasure. So, while Oscar Wilde found an intellectual rationalization for suffering, Buddha became indifferent to it.
Judaism and Christianity suggest that freedom can be found by taking another path. In the Old Testament, God instructs Abraham, and Abraham listens and follows. The word of God tells us what we need to know and leads us along the path of the good life.
Later, Paul, who was one of the first to convert people to the way of Jesus, laid a similar foundation to Christianity by saying, “Obeying the commandments of God is everything.�
Meanwhile, Islam teaches us that before any of us were born, we took an oath. He asked all of the human beings he created, “Am I not your Lord?� Everyone answered yes. While we may not remember taking this oath, the responsibility is real, and those pangs of guilt that your conscience feels when you do something wrong is a result of that initial agreement with God.
For many, there is a sense of freedom in religions like Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The good life is simply a process of discerning God’s will and following it. It may not be an easy life, but we’re told it is indeed a good life, and there can be a sense of relief in not having to calculate and weigh your actions against more arbitrary guidelines.
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The Big Picture and How it All Ends
If you don’t mind my asking, how big is your forest? Remember the Smokey responsibility? Well, one important question within that is how big are you going to make your forest � or, how far are you going to extend your sphere of responsibility?
This also relates to another part of the Question: What should we hope for, and whose circumstances are we truly considering?
Philosophers like Aristotle and Friedrich Nietzsche often had a certain type of person in mind when considering the qualities of a flourishing life. Aristotle was only concerned with a free man who owned property. Nietzsche’s focus on the development of artistic genius required a certain level of privilege and exemption from everyday chores. Indeed a lot of philosophies are more concerned with a good personal life rather than a good world. And this goes beyond just our fellow humans. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the non-human life on the planet as well?
Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass and she casts a critical eye on a certain Christian mindset that came to America. It’s the mindset that pushed the Native American population off their land, and then proceeded to kill off entire species of animals and deplete and poison many parts of that land.
Kimmerer identifies aspects of Christianity that can lead its followers to treat non-humans as less important, and be unconcerned with the present. After all, everything will be fine once we get to heaven, right? And God created humans in his image and bestowed us with power over all other creatures. Therefore, responsibility doesn’t extend to animals and trees.
Yet the beliefs of North American Indigenous peoples do extend to nature and the other living things around us. Respecting the water we drink and the air we breathe, and making sure this gift keeps on giving, is essential to the good life.
Kimmerer’s critique of a specific Christian mindset touches upon how our values can be swayed depending on our understanding of death.
Surely you’ve heard the famous word from Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question…� Well, Buddha would like to politely disagree. This is not the question, for being or not being � that is, life and death � are two opposing concepts that have limited bearing on reality. As the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains it, everything is in constant interdependent transformation. Your life wasn’t the beginning and your death isn’t the end. There is no birth and death, only continuing transformation.
For some, this idea of no birth and no death can help us focus on the here and now. While this might help some people achieve happiness in the moment, for others, it raises red flags. People like the philosopher Martha Nussbaum and the writer C.S. Lewis believes that the finite aspect of life is what gives agency to your life.
Some people may long for eternal life, but others feel that if life lasted forever, there would be no meaning to it. Death is what gives life purpose. In fact, when we say we’d be willing to die for something, this is a statement that testifies to life’s importance.
Now might be a good time to ask: Who are the people, and what are the ideals that you would die for? Or, to put it another way, what is worth living for?
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Living the Vision
Let’s say you’ve done your homework and you’ve come up with your own vision of the good life. You’ve identified your values and you’ve answered the Question. You know what your good and meaningful life looks like. You know what is worth wanting.
But now what? For some of us, the next part can be the most difficult part of all: putting words and ideas into action. Actually living the life you envision.
This kind of deep, newfound understanding in life often requires making significant changes in your life. It may prompt a lifestyle change or force you to deal with some ingrained habits that need to be gotten rid of. This kind of change can be hard, to say the least.
Now, you may very well be one of those strong minded people who can set a goal and reach it without any help. But most of us benefit from some sort of help. People tend to flourish when they’re in a community that supports their vision.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be a large community, either. Consider the programs that support alcoholics and addicts who are trying to stay sober. Breaking the cycle of addiction can be one of the most challenging things to do. But when Bill W. created the Alcoholics Anonymous program, it went on to become one of the most successful programs of its kind. One of the key aspects is that of a sponsor � one other like-minded person who is going through the same challenges and can act as a lifeline in times of trouble. They can relate to the struggle, empathize with the difficulties, and keep the other person motivated and on track.
When you broaden out to bigger groups, it’s more likely that you aren’t going to find a homogenous consensus of ideals and values. When it comes to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, you’ll likely find a lot of internal debate going on. But what you do gain is ritual. Rituals and communal traditions can be a powerful thing in raising spirits and providing strength to continue when times are tough.
Meditation and prayer are also good tools to promote long-lasting change. Chances are, you may have a basic understanding of how meditation works. So, for our final bit of insight, let’s look at the tool known as the examen.
The examen is a tool developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Before he became a saint, Ignatius was a somewhat typical sixteenth century guy, in that he was into gambling, dueling and womanizing. But after he was nearly killed in a military battle, he had a vision involving the Virgin Mary and was forever changed.
One of the tools he developed in maintaining his newfound, late-in-life devotion to theology was the examen. It is essentially a daily prayer, but it takes the form of five parts.
The first is gratitude: reflecting on your day and acknowledging the good parts.
Second is review: go a bit deeper into your reflection and think about the times where you might have felt God’s presence, and when you might have turned away from that presence.
Third is sorrow: acknowledge the actions of the day for which you are sorry.
Fourth is forgiveness: ask for forgiveness and make plans to reconcile with those you may have hurt, or those who have hurt you.
Fifth is grace: look ahead to tomorrow and ask for God’s grace and to be more mindful in recognizing God’s presence.
Hopefully these ideas and tools can help you to identify your own vision of a good life, and provide you with the motivation to actually live that life to its fullest.
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There are many different visions of a good life out there. This isn’t a life of comfort and wealth. Rather, it is a meaningful life where you flourish in the pursuit of your values and ideals, perhaps making the world a place where other people can also flourish. Finding your own vision of the good life may involve piecing together the harmonious aspects of different visions from the past and asking tough questions about what you really believe in. By looking at aspects of utilitarianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and other philosophies and religions, we can create a recipe that best suits our own vision. Taking action on this vision may also be difficult. It may require community support and daily meditative practice.
When you think about “the good life,� what springs to mind? Does the phrase conjure up images of yachts, exclusive restaurants, designer clothes, champagne on ice and endless days of sun-soaked leisure? Somewhere along the way, we’ve come to equate the good life with that of the moneyed high life, and this might be a problem. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the comforts that money can buy, are these the things we should be striving for in life?
In the sections that follow we’ll try to get at what the authors call “the Question.� Part of that question is, What’s really worth wanting? What should we hope for? And, how should we live? That’s right. We’ll be getting into some heady philosophical territory in this book. So, if you’re ready, let’s dive in.
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The Question with Many Answers
If you’re reading or listening to these words, there’s a good chance you’re alive. We can all agree on that, right? But what does it mean to be alive? What responsibilities, if any, does this gift come with? Here we begin to find ourselves at a point of divergence, for there are many schools of thought on what it means to live a good and ethically sound life.
Whether or not we have responsibilities as human beings is part of what the authors call “the Question.� Really, the Question is made up of many different, interconnected questions, such as: What matters most? What does a flourishing life look like? And, who do we answer to?
Before we dig into the philosophical and theological ideas behind the Question, let’s look at the process we’ll be taking along the way. We can start by considering one of the biggest parts of the Question: What is worth wanting?
You can think of the process as something akin to a deep-sea dive. You want to go down, past the realm of automatic, reflexive action, and proceed through self-reflection in order to reach self-transcendence. Here, we can determine what you see when you think of a full and flourishing life. Remember, we’re not asking, “What do I want?� But rather, “What is worth wanting.� What would make life fulfilling and meaningful to you?
Now, as with any deep-sea dive, once you discover what is truly worth wanting you have to come back to the surface. Back to action. This is important because the point is to live a life that reflects this understanding. Sure, you might be able to tell people what’s important to you, but do your actions support your words?
Before we move on, let’s look at one more fundamental part of the Question: Who are we responsible to? To frame it another way, you might ask yourself: Are my actions subject to judgment?
This is an essential question because it will help you to spot the differences in the various philosophical and theological theories that we’ll touch upon. As you might imagine, this question can also be answered in different ways.
As a handy shortcut, the authors use the old Smokey the Bear saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires,� to highlight the three primary modes of responsibility.
First is the “only you� part. In this scenario, you are the primary agent of responsibility. But then there’s the forest, which you can think of as the sphere of your responsibility � your family, your community, the world around you. Finally, there’s old Smokey himself. He’s the authoritative figure. The rule giver and the judge. If you want to make meaningful choices in life, you’ll want to at least consider all three of these responsibilities: yourself, those around you, and the possibility of a higher power.
In the next sections we’ll start to look at some more compelling visions of the good life, and see how the great philosophical and theological minds answer the Question.
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Pleasure, Pain, Freedom, and Indifference
In this section we’ll look at some of the most influential philosophies on life, like utilitarianism, Stoicism and Buddhism, as well as some other religions and a few more modern sources of wisdom.
It’s worth noting that the authors aren’t prescribing any one idea over another. Rather, they all have valuable insights that may or may not help you form your own vision of a good, meaningful, and flourishing life. You can think of it like making a recipe. It’s about finding the right ingredients that can harmonize and work together.
Let’s start with utilitarianism. In a way, utilitarianism offers a sensible answer to the question, “What does it feel like to live a good life?� Jeremy Bentham, who offered up this philosophy in 1822, provided a straightforward dichotomy. As he saw it, actions that result in pleasure, or allow us to avoid pain, are good. Actions that result in pain, or take away pleasure, are bad.
Bentham was also something of an anti-snob. He didn’t create a hierarchy of pleasure. There was no distinction between parlor games and a Beethoven symphony, so long as both generated pleasure to the individuals in question.
This supports the view of self-responsibility. The person having the experience is the ultimate judge of whether it is good or bad. But one important distinction is that Bentham believed we also had a responsibility to increase the pleasure of others. His vision was for nations to enact constitutions that would promote pleasure and minimize pain.
But is pleasure what we should really be focusing on? And are all pleasures of equal value? And is pain really that bad?
In 1895, the playwright Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in jail under England’s laws against so-called “acts of gross indecency.� While in prison, he wrote a self-reflective work entitled De Profundis, wherein Wilde reevaluated his previous devotion to pleasure. He didn’t regret anything, but he now viewed some pleasures as more “senseless� than others. The pleasures provided by nature were more valuable than the pleasures provided by fame.
On top of that, Wilde also realized the importance of sorrow and recognized how much he’d been avoiding what he called the “supreme emotion.� He now understood that sorrow was a fundamental component to everything in life. Disappointments and heartbreaks happen everyday, all around us. There’s nothing bad about this, it’s simply the truth, and the truth is beautiful. So, when we feel sorrow, we’re in touch with this reality in a profound way. Now he believed that you couldn’t live a good life without feeling and connecting to this sorrow.
Buddhism also teaches us that pleasure is more of a distraction than a goal. All suffering, as Buddha saw it, stems from craving. We crave pleasure, fame, wealth, power, and we form such attachments that even the thought of losing these things can bring about suffering. Buddha went the extreme route. He starved himself on one grain of rice a day. But he eventually saw “a middle way� that meant neither extravagance nor denial. He realized that the things we crave are not the problem. It’s the craving itself.
When Buddha achieved transcendence, he still felt pain, but it didn’t cause suffering because he had detached himself from his need for pleasure. So, while Oscar Wilde found an intellectual rationalization for suffering, Buddha became indifferent to it.
Judaism and Christianity suggest that freedom can be found by taking another path. In the Old Testament, God instructs Abraham, and Abraham listens and follows. The word of God tells us what we need to know and leads us along the path of the good life.
Later, Paul, who was one of the first to convert people to the way of Jesus, laid a similar foundation to Christianity by saying, “Obeying the commandments of God is everything.�
Meanwhile, Islam teaches us that before any of us were born, we took an oath. He asked all of the human beings he created, “Am I not your Lord?� Everyone answered yes. While we may not remember taking this oath, the responsibility is real, and those pangs of guilt that your conscience feels when you do something wrong is a result of that initial agreement with God.
For many, there is a sense of freedom in religions like Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The good life is simply a process of discerning God’s will and following it. It may not be an easy life, but we’re told it is indeed a good life, and there can be a sense of relief in not having to calculate and weigh your actions against more arbitrary guidelines.
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The Big Picture and How it All Ends
If you don’t mind my asking, how big is your forest? Remember the Smokey responsibility? Well, one important question within that is how big are you going to make your forest � or, how far are you going to extend your sphere of responsibility?
This also relates to another part of the Question: What should we hope for, and whose circumstances are we truly considering?
Philosophers like Aristotle and Friedrich Nietzsche often had a certain type of person in mind when considering the qualities of a flourishing life. Aristotle was only concerned with a free man who owned property. Nietzsche’s focus on the development of artistic genius required a certain level of privilege and exemption from everyday chores. Indeed a lot of philosophies are more concerned with a good personal life rather than a good world. And this goes beyond just our fellow humans. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the non-human life on the planet as well?
Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass and she casts a critical eye on a certain Christian mindset that came to America. It’s the mindset that pushed the Native American population off their land, and then proceeded to kill off entire species of animals and deplete and poison many parts of that land.
Kimmerer identifies aspects of Christianity that can lead its followers to treat non-humans as less important, and be unconcerned with the present. After all, everything will be fine once we get to heaven, right? And God created humans in his image and bestowed us with power over all other creatures. Therefore, responsibility doesn’t extend to animals and trees.
Yet the beliefs of North American Indigenous peoples do extend to nature and the other living things around us. Respecting the water we drink and the air we breathe, and making sure this gift keeps on giving, is essential to the good life.
Kimmerer’s critique of a specific Christian mindset touches upon how our values can be swayed depending on our understanding of death.
Surely you’ve heard the famous word from Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question…� Well, Buddha would like to politely disagree. This is not the question, for being or not being � that is, life and death � are two opposing concepts that have limited bearing on reality. As the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains it, everything is in constant interdependent transformation. Your life wasn’t the beginning and your death isn’t the end. There is no birth and death, only continuing transformation.
For some, this idea of no birth and no death can help us focus on the here and now. While this might help some people achieve happiness in the moment, for others, it raises red flags. People like the philosopher Martha Nussbaum and the writer C.S. Lewis believes that the finite aspect of life is what gives agency to your life.
Some people may long for eternal life, but others feel that if life lasted forever, there would be no meaning to it. Death is what gives life purpose. In fact, when we say we’d be willing to die for something, this is a statement that testifies to life’s importance.
Now might be a good time to ask: Who are the people, and what are the ideals that you would die for? Or, to put it another way, what is worth living for?
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Living the Vision
Let’s say you’ve done your homework and you’ve come up with your own vision of the good life. You’ve identified your values and you’ve answered the Question. You know what your good and meaningful life looks like. You know what is worth wanting.
But now what? For some of us, the next part can be the most difficult part of all: putting words and ideas into action. Actually living the life you envision.
This kind of deep, newfound understanding in life often requires making significant changes in your life. It may prompt a lifestyle change or force you to deal with some ingrained habits that need to be gotten rid of. This kind of change can be hard, to say the least.
Now, you may very well be one of those strong minded people who can set a goal and reach it without any help. But most of us benefit from some sort of help. People tend to flourish when they’re in a community that supports their vision.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be a large community, either. Consider the programs that support alcoholics and addicts who are trying to stay sober. Breaking the cycle of addiction can be one of the most challenging things to do. But when Bill W. created the Alcoholics Anonymous program, it went on to become one of the most successful programs of its kind. One of the key aspects is that of a sponsor � one other like-minded person who is going through the same challenges and can act as a lifeline in times of trouble. They can relate to the struggle, empathize with the difficulties, and keep the other person motivated and on track.
When you broaden out to bigger groups, it’s more likely that you aren’t going to find a homogenous consensus of ideals and values. When it comes to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, you’ll likely find a lot of internal debate going on. But what you do gain is ritual. Rituals and communal traditions can be a powerful thing in raising spirits and providing strength to continue when times are tough.
Meditation and prayer are also good tools to promote long-lasting change. Chances are, you may have a basic understanding of how meditation works. So, for our final bit of insight, let’s look at the tool known as the examen.
The examen is a tool developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Before he became a saint, Ignatius was a somewhat typical sixteenth century guy, in that he was into gambling, dueling and womanizing. But after he was nearly killed in a military battle, he had a vision involving the Virgin Mary and was forever changed.
One of the tools he developed in maintaining his newfound, late-in-life devotion to theology was the examen. It is essentially a daily prayer, but it takes the form of five parts.
The first is gratitude: reflecting on your day and acknowledging the good parts.
Second is review: go a bit deeper into your reflection and think about the times where you might have felt God’s presence, and when you might have turned away from that presence.
Third is sorrow: acknowledge the actions of the day for which you are sorry.
Fourth is forgiveness: ask for forgiveness and make plans to reconcile with those you may have hurt, or those who have hurt you.
Fifth is grace: look ahead to tomorrow and ask for God’s grace and to be more mindful in recognizing God’s presence.
Hopefully these ideas and tools can help you to identify your own vision of a good life, and provide you with the motivation to actually live that life to its fullest.
-
There are many different visions of a good life out there. This isn’t a life of comfort and wealth. Rather, it is a meaningful life where you flourish in the pursuit of your values and ideals, perhaps making the world a place where other people can also flourish. Finding your own vision of the good life may involve piecing together the harmonious aspects of different visions from the past and asking tough questions about what you really believe in. By looking at aspects of utilitarianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and other philosophies and religions, we can create a recipe that best suits our own vision. Taking action on this vision may also be difficult. It may require community support and daily meditative practice.
August 7, 2024
It took me a year to finish this book - but I was determined. I kept hearing about its impact from different sources. It’s academic for most of us - I mean they are Yale professors for goodness sake. But - the Question is one we must each face. This book is full of wisdom, a search for purpose - and allows the reader to come to our own conclusions. I will be going back to chapters over and over again.
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April 20, 2024Read it as an outline for a high school course based on Yale’s undergrad course. Excited to put it together and teach it. This book on its own begs the rest of the syllabus reading.
May 9, 2023
is based on a class taught by the authors to (I believe) incoming Freshman. The book is designed to be used in a seminar-style college class, assuming dialogue with others as well as with the course content. I enjoyed reading the book on my own, but would love to do so as a part of a group.
The book itself is a guide for those seeking to discern what their vision of eudaimonia, the good life, is. The authors draw on various religious and philosophical attempts to answer the big questions and provide a great many questions for the reader to engage with. A book like this could be especially helpful for generating deep conversation between various worldviews.
Books that I have read that are in conversation with this one: , , , , , , , , , , and .
The book itself is a guide for those seeking to discern what their vision of eudaimonia, the good life, is. The authors draw on various religious and philosophical attempts to answer the big questions and provide a great many questions for the reader to engage with. A book like this could be especially helpful for generating deep conversation between various worldviews.
Books that I have read that are in conversation with this one: , , , , , , , , , , and .
May 14, 2023
An accessible intro the life’s most important question. Perfect for young adults and inquisitive adults.
June 3, 2023
Miroslav Volf has been an influential theological voice for me since his publication of Exclusion and Embrace, and I have learned a great deal from his writing over the past two decades. Volf has been wrestling with the question of what makes a life worth living in his publications for the last eight years and this book feels like the successful culmination of years of writing, teaching, and seeking wise partners from his position at the Yale Divinity School. His previous books on this topic (Flourishing: Why we Need Religion in a Globalized World and For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference) have helped frame the questions that now A Life Worth Living provides a guide for working through. A Life Worth Living models the class that Volf, Croasmun, and McAnnally-Linz teach at Yale, as well as at Danbury Federal Correctional Institute where they invite their seekers to consider several faith and wisdom traditions as they pose several key questions that are a part of seeking an authentic life. These questions include: What is worth wanting? What is the place of happiness in an authentic life? What is the authority are we responsible and what traditions form our vision of truth? How does a good life feel and what role do negative emotions/suffering have in the good life? What is worth hoping for? How should we live and what provides for a meaningful life? How do the various answers come together to form a life worth living? How does our good life fit within our bigger picture of the world? What do we do when we fall short of our visions of what life should be? How do we react to the suffering we experience and the suffering we encounter in the world around us?
One of the gifts of this book is it invites the reader into an encounter with a diverse set of wise voices who provide very different answers to each of the questions the book poses and provides a spectrum of possible answers for one willing to engage the questions. It is not a difficult book to read and it does not expect any previous engagement with philosophy or theology, instead coming out of the experience of teaching both undergraduates and inmates it simplifies the voices which come from across the religious and non-religious spectrum into an approachable set of stories. But the simplicity of the presentation does not take away from the deep nature of the reflection prompted by the questions that the book presents. This is an invaluable resource for those seeking to live a life that authentically reflects the values of the person trying to construct a life worth living.
One of the gifts of this book is it invites the reader into an encounter with a diverse set of wise voices who provide very different answers to each of the questions the book poses and provides a spectrum of possible answers for one willing to engage the questions. It is not a difficult book to read and it does not expect any previous engagement with philosophy or theology, instead coming out of the experience of teaching both undergraduates and inmates it simplifies the voices which come from across the religious and non-religious spectrum into an approachable set of stories. But the simplicity of the presentation does not take away from the deep nature of the reflection prompted by the questions that the book presents. This is an invaluable resource for those seeking to live a life that authentically reflects the values of the person trying to construct a life worth living.
June 5, 2023
3.5 stars
July 25, 2023
I enjoyed this book! Nothing was too life-altering, but I really enjoyed hearing different religions/philosophers take on what makes a good life. It was very thought-provoking and I had a few good take aways on what I can commit into my daily life to keep perspective on what makes for a meaningful life.
August 21, 2024
So different than the self help-y vibe given off by the cover. I want everyone to read this. Want to discuss.
November 12, 2023
I listened to this book on audio, not really understanding that this is one time that a paper copy would be much more useful. There’s a lot to unpack, digest and consider within these pages, all of it thought provoking. I am listening to it a second time now better prepared to slow down and Andes sone questions to myself.
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