Interesting prompt…the most important ‘things’ needed to live a good life. So much, for me, to unpack in this!
So, what is a good life first of all? You can’t know what the most important things are if you can’t define what is a good life. I feel that it’s important to strip ‘good life’ down to its basics. What is a good life? Well, for me, it’s being with people I love enjoying each other’s company, eating good food, being surrounded by nature, visiting places you are called to go to, living on purpose. A good life, for me, doesn’t mean having tonnes of money and material things if it means you don’t have the time or energy to step back and enjoy your environment in its widest sense. If you’re slaving away too much in the office in a 9-5 you dislike to bring in the money to fund the materialistic side of your life, then for me, that isn’t a good life. But, if you’re enjoying your wider environment and living on purpose which is bringing in abundance as a happy by-product then that is a good life, for me.
Then, for me, there is the need to unpack the word ‘things’. To me, it implies the material. As I have written in a previous blog, for me ‘stuff’ doesn’t bring happiness or a great life. ‘Things’ can be nice to have, but when they become an anchor ‘things’ start to reduce the potential for a great life. So, I’m not sure that there are any ‘things’ for me that are important to me to making a good life for me. I’ve had ‘things’ and been incredibly lonely.
I think the basis of a good life is love. Pure and simple. Love for self, love for others, love for nature and our wider community. ‘All you need is love’ as the Beatles sang (they’re not a favourite of mine, but I can’t disagree with the sentiment). Yes, you need a roof over your head that is warm, safe and secure including security of tenure. Yes, you need food and preferably healthy food and access to clean water. So, you need access to money to provide those things. But these are necessities, they’re not things that in and of themselves create a good life. You can have them and not have a good life. Some people are willing to forgo them to escape the life they have with them, such is the level of desperation in their lives. Which is a truly tragic position to be in. I can’t imagine it luckily for me, but I can hugely empathise with it.
I also think that the foundation of a good life is to live one on purpose, in whatever way that means to you. It can mean any job you are called to do, any faith you are guided to explore, anything in short that feels like purpose. It can certainly take a while to find what that purpose is, I know it has for me. Or at least, it has taken me a while to see the blindingly obvious in my life and do something about it! Because our purpose does tend to be highlighted to us in a myriad of ways if we just take notice. For me, the fact that I have been a storyteller since childhood, that I have written stories for as long as I can remember, that I can weave together thoughts, ideas and concepts into something that is a concrete business strategy is something else I am skilled in, a purpose. A means of helping people with ways of moving forward with their business. Or, as my friend calls me, the intuitive business whisperer. Something I’ve never thought about as being a particular talent before because it came so naturally, but which I am being guided to explore further.
As I write this, another thought has occurred to me about what is a good life. And it is about service. Service to others. Whatever your purpose is, a lawyer, a doctor, a banker (even!), an artist, a writer, a nurse, a secretary, a businessperson…whatever it is, if you do it in a sense of providing service to your community then you can’t go wrong. I don’t mean doing the work for free, I mean doing it in a way that isn’t purely the pursuit of money but is also about serving your fellow human. We all serve, in whatever employment we do, and we should do so willingly and with pride. In Law of Attraction circles, there is a Bible phrase:
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24
What isn’t mentioned is the context of this excerpt which is all about service. Providing service to your community in whatever way that means to you and them, and providing it willingly and with love. If we all went about our work with a sense at least of providing service to our community, including our colleagues, how different would things look to us? If we approached it as a means of not just earning money to pay the bills, but as an act of love for humanity? Because if we all went about it in this way, we would not only be giving it we would be receiving it as well. Surely, this would go a long way towards contributing to a good life.
So, for me, there are a number of things that are most important in living a good life which are all connected by one: love. In all the ways it is applicable. Through living a life of purpose, and of service to others, based in love has to be an example of living a very good life.
One final thought…and I’m going against all the teaching I ever received by introducing something completely new into the conclusion…good coffee. Good coffee is a thing that helps make a good life!!
Louisa Simpson 