A Good Life
A while back I reflected on how we are always making meaning of our lives, whether the day-to-day pieces or the (in many ways unknowable) sum of it all. The frameworks we use, whether consciously or subconsciously, to make meaning, are ones we have been given or if we are lucky, gifted. 2022 (scaffolded significantly by 2020 and 2021) for me has been a year of reflecting on how I make meaning of my life, on what I do professionally and how I live personally. This piece is the first of the series to emerge from this process.
I don’t think growing up I had much messaging about a good life but I certainly got a lot around “better than” life. The world, especially in countries like India, is competitive, because the narrative is that there aren’t enough opportunities to go around (there could be, but there aren’t in the current structure). So for a long time, I thought of my life as ‘worse than’. In retrospect, most all of those comparisons were pointless because of what they focused on. They were not my values or hopes.
Knowing what is not ‘it’ has been the starting point to many life decisions and changes for me. Off late, my need to know whether we live in a fundamentally ‘good or bad’ world has become more urgent, to the point where I surprise people with this question (what’s life without surprises). I will say that to me feel safe and secure is the absolute core for any of the other questions to be answered or lived. While we all experience fear differently, there are absolute fears for one’s life and well-being based on gender, race, income, sexual orientation, that can (rightfully) completely weaken our ability to live well.
A good life is bigger than what I began with: bigger here is really about the scope and vastness of my life, and not the size of assets or bank balances. Financial security is ESSENTIAL. What I mean in this context is being able to experience more than just the place and country I was born in, the adults in my early life, the educational experiences I had, how I defined and experienced friendships, work relationships and more in my early twenties and how that has grown to be more expansive. I have also learned that traveling, new spaces, unexpected interactions are not transformational by themselves; unless I am open to the idea of changing, I could travel the world and return with the same small mind.
A good life is about finding the balance, living in it as fully as is in reach, and forgiving yourself often: this is the one that I think is ongoing, and balance looks different ever day and perhaps even in each moment. We often talk about the seasons of life, and what is within reach at one point in time (the endless energy of my twenties comes to mind), is not always available. Several of us live with a voice that can be both ruminative and remonstrative, taking us away from the here and now. I think the distraction of having sixty different things to choose from at any given time is not helpful either; I can’t see a way to balance well without focus. I try to remind myself of this quote (which can mean many different things): the days are long but the years are short.
A good life is shaped in varying degrees by where you come from, where you are, and where you will be: Having the ability to impact the weight of each of these categories is, for me, privilege. For me, the distance I would travel between where I was and where I am, was unimaginable. I don’t mean just geography, but also the mental and emotional risky leap in realizing that an early, orchestrated by others, marriage was a poor choice for me and that discomfort necessitated change. I grew up seeing ungenerous adults (not my parents), the ones with diamond-clad hands who bargained over pennies with daily wage laborers; the ones who used veiled barbs and humblebrags to put others down. Being able to physically distance myself has helped me identify, label, and mentally step away from these.
I don’t think this is the entire ‘recipe’ for a good life; rather the components I have been able to consciously identify and articulate. That has taken work, reflecting on when I feel well, happy versus when I find myself brooding, being anxious and just reactive. Mental real estate is important, and who and what I let in in my life, is something I curate and reflect on often. As the saying goes, when people show who you are, believe them.