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By what metric do you evalute your life?
I'm about ~25% through with my life, and I'm realizing that I'm not happy with what I've done with it so far. I don't want to waste my life. In thinking about this, I've realized that I don't have a good way to evaluate what does and doesn't matter. What metric do you measure success by? Money? Happiness? Prestige? None of those options sound great to me. How do you measure success?
I find practicing mindfulness has really helped me evaluate what I want in life, and what I regard as being successful.
So at least a couple of times a week I ask myself if in this moment I feel successful? What am I grateful right now? That can be something as simple as the smell of the forest in autumn (sounds corny, but I am genuinely grateful for that). I've made a lot of changes in my life in the past ten years. Emigrated, went to university for the first time in my late 30's. My wife and I re-evaluated our lives and decided what we wanted.
Here's why I'm happy with my life right now:
These are my criteria. Note that it took me a long time to get here. I was useless in school, developed a fairly heavy drug habit in my late teens which lasted the best part of a decade. I beat that, but substituted daily alcohol binges instead for a year or two. Worked a mediocre job for 10 years with very little career progression, met my now wife in the middle of that period, we had our son. After the banking collapse in 2008 we went into severe negative equity, were forced to emigrate; I went back to college and my wife supported us during that time, learnt a new language, got my first job, got gaslit by a couple of co-workers over a period of a year (while pretending to be friends the whole time) and ended up out of work for 3 months after a nervous breakdown (still seeing a psychologist about that 3 years later). So it took a bit to get here, but I'm here now and it's great!!
So the questions I ask myself: Am I happy right now? Is my family happy? Can I do what I want to do with relative ease (financially or otherwise), am I learning new things? what do I want to do next?
It seems to me that you’re doing great! Happiness is an elusive concept, though. Just be your best and keep moving forward. That’s how I think, at least.
Like my grandpa used to say: better than yesterday, worst than tomorrow. He was a wise man.
Yeah, it's been a wild ride! No time for regrets, you're grandpa had the right attitude, I'm gonna adopt that saying myself.
I try no to. I’m happier this way.
Sometimes the search for happiness is the only thing that keeps you away from happiness. Just like saying "Relax!" makes people more tense, asking someone "Are you happy?" will probably immediately make them less happy.
Happiness is like those dark spots in the vision (in my language we call them “moving flies”). It goes away as soon as you try to look at it.
I agree with that.
To paraphrase a line from WarGames, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
If the metric you use is subjective, then it's useless as a metric.
If you use an objective metric, It is going to make you feel bad in one way or another. You will either feel bad because you don't measure well in it, or because you doing well in that metric is unethical.
Just do what makes you happy. It sounds simple, but that's just one of the reasons why it's such a profound thought.
Happiness/Contentment and Friendship.
Money, Prestige, Wealth, Reputation... all of it is meaningless if you are happy with your life and surround yourself with good people.
It took me a very long time to get to that conclusion and once I did, I was a lot happier and stress free. Well, stress free is pushing it because the industry I work in would never allow that, but I have a lot less stress than I used to.
Do you live your life with a metric? What is it? I ask this because your outlook on life mirrors mine, and I'm curious about the details.
I think you're disguising an opinion as science here. I've never known science to opine on the ultimate meaning of life - that's the realm of philosophy.
If anything, I think science lays out procreation as the ultimate goal via Darwin's theories, and that even gets complicated when looking at group dynamics and how those who do not procreate contribute to the continued survival of the group.
I definitely agree with everything else you said, but that struck a chord with me so I wanted to respond.
Got it! That makes perfect sense as an extension of the null hypothesis.
Edit: And thank you!
While I think on an abstract level the things that really matter are basically only if I am a good person and if I am happy, those aren't concrete enough for me to look at those as a representation of how well I'm doing in life. What I tend to look at instead is much more simple and quantifiable: How many of the things I want to do have I done?
I like the flexibility here, because what I want to do changes all the time and tying my evaluation of my whole life to concrete unchanging things just won't work. So I look back at the last week or so and think "I finished that project, played that game, watched that movie, and talked to that friend. I did well, good job me!" This does add some pressure if you're roped into doing things that you don't want to do and end up with time that is essentially worthless...but I am personally very much opposed to approaches to life that are about learning to be content even if things suck for you and you're doing nothing. The pressure (even if it's about something as simple as watching movies) pushes you to balance both doing what you can with what you have and trying to improve your circumstances.
I also encourage having something to record what you do. A traditional journal works perfectly well for this, but if you're not inclined to do that, then maybe start a blog just for yourself or something. Since the things I want to do tend to be related to either consuming or creating art and media, I usually just keep a log of all that while also spewing personal shit on a social media account somewhere.
Since we all have different goals, you have to figure out on your own what exactly the most satisfying way to do this is. But if you get it right, you can find deep satisfaction in looking back at what you've done. You can look back at a certain point in your life and think "Yes, I have grown as a person since this point. My life has moved forward." You're also much more able to be introspective and understand how your mind and life have evolved over time. You can divide your life into different chunks and understand how you moved between them and where those changes originated.
Maybe you don't want to define yourself by the small things you do all the time. If that's the case, what I'm saying might not be for you.
Money. Do I have enough money that I could cease my labors and retire for the rest of my expected life? No? Keep working.
I'm fairly introverted and have been alternately anxious and depressed my entire adult life. All I want is to have enough money that I can stop worrying about it forever and spend some time finding out what makes me happy.
Happiness. Fulfillment in my relationships with others, in my work, and with my lifestyle.
At present my relationships aren't particularly fulfilling, nor is my lifestyle. Through my work, however, I plan to eventually get to a standard of living that suits my desired lifestyle, and through that lifestyle meet people with whom I can develop fulfilling relationships.
I'm on track toward that goal and began with no fulfillment in any of those, so by my metric I'm doing fairly well.
I think you may be asking the wrong question. None of us can tell you how to evaluate your life, and asking others to tell you how to live will never make you fulfilled. There is no shame in pursuing happiness above all else, but there is also no shame in being self sacrificing.
If I were to evaluate my life my question would be "am I the person who I would like to be, or imagine myself being?"
and stop there.
Challenge.
Or more a two-part:
If there isn't enough, or too much, challenge, I begin to cope less.
I find boredom every bit as dangerous as stress.
Keeping those two in balance, means I am able to enjoy myself.
I think by personal development and how much you grow and develop. Sort of like a tree, grow big old and wise.
Contentment and peace of mind. I generally think of stuff like money, jobs, prestige, etc., as tools.
What makes me content? Learning, exploring, dreaming, inventing stories. I'm trying to set up a life where I can maximise these (namely, I want to become an academician).
What gives me peace of mind? Since the end of my teens which I passed as a depressive adolescent, I've been building a philosophy according to which I shape my stance and make my decisions. The very basic part of such philosophy is that "I'm a person, nothing else", and that "I have to create my own space and do myself first what I deem the best thing to do". Alternatively: "just be; let be; and eat your own dogfood, first".
I like to think of terms of "did I learn something new today?" and to that end, thank you for teaching me the word "academician" :)
You're welcome :) Is it not common in English? (It's not my native tongue.)
I think in the U.S. you'd hear someone say "I want to be a professor" or maybe less common "I want to be in academia." So it's more a word choice, phrasing thing.
TIL, thanks! In Turkey a professor is a rank a PhD can get, and is the highest ordinary rank one can get in academia (Prof. Dr. > Doç. Dr. > Dr. (= PhD) > Öğretim üyesi [= academic staff: lecturer, research assistant etc.]). I never got the hang of how things are outside Turkey, most of the time it can be a k12 teacher, any lecturer, but also is used as a rank. It really confuses me.
If I use the normal metrics I am a failure. I live with my family, my car is about to fall apart, I don't make much money, and I am nowhere near as advanced in the area of life I want to be.
Am I happy? Relatively. I struggle with depression and anxiety. I enjoy the things I do, do, for a living, and although my friend list is small, they are cool and loyal.
It takes very little to entertain me. Show me something I am passionate about and my excitement level will go up. The things that entertain me fit into a narrow group, however. It's a geek thing.
That said, I have no idea where I will be in 10 years. Probably homeless, or worse. I have no saving and my job(s) have no pension. Welcome to america.