been around lots of death recently and thought it was a worthwhile question to ask.

what do you consider to be a life well lived? in contrast, what would be a life not well lived or wasted? seems like it should be an obvious concept, but rarely is it defined clearly.

some aspects that come to mind are family, friends, work, experiences, mistakes, learning, teaching, etc.

 

it's a relative and subjective. a life well lived is one where the individual has accomplished most, if not all, of the goals he has set for himself throughout his lifetime.

 

Do what makes you happy, help others, and be nice. I believe every aspect of a life well lived falls under this simple statement.

 

what if being happy for a certain individual is by being selfish and mean??

 

all a matter of perspective.

Being happy for some is enough, serving god for others, world domination for me

an impossible question to get definitive answer to. A buddist would be content sweeping the walkway in front of the monastary while Bam Magera may need to be stimulated a bit more than that.

its one of those questions you would have to answer yourself or apply your perspective to others to answer. Look at person A and Person B and then apply your perspective to each of their lives to determine whether or not YOU feel they have led a life well spent or not. In most cases your answer will be very different from the subject you are critiquing


good question, hard to answer.

 

Happiness, good family and friends, good health.

I don't really care about the goals thing. If I am happy and surrounded by good people, and my health is good, what should I care that I never got to play point guard for the lakers?

I don't think money has anything to do with it. Some of the best times in my life I had nothing.

I think you can tell a lot about the quality of a persons life at thier funeral. If nobody shows up, it could not have been that great.

 

if happiness, good family and friends, and good health are what you desire, then those ARE your goals. whatever anyone desire in their life, those things are technically their goals.

 

good health and good family are not neceesarily goals you can attain. If my mom was a ten ton crack whore when I am born, not much I can do to make her a good mother. If you are born with MS you're screwed there too.

You can try to make the best of it, but being pushed around in a wheelchair by your crackwhore mother is not exactly the beginning of a great life. My goal would be to hang myself.

 

Everyone is different... so there will NEVER be a clear answer to this question!!!!

Rule of thumb: Do whatever it is that makes YOU happy... not someone else happy.

Andre

 

I took a few high-level esoteric Music composition classes in college, and I started realizing life has a few things in common.

Good Music is self-defining. Extraordinary lives are often the same way.

If you do something once, it's kind of irrelevant. You do something twice, it's a reiteration. You do something three times (or more), you've probably got an idea you can run with, and truly create from it.

I tend to view people in terms of what they set out to do vs. how far they got there and/or the level of integrity/consistency with which they realized their vision.