{"id":38397,"date":"2024-12-26T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38397"},"modified":"2025-01-05T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T17:01:46","slug":"transform-the-daily-grind-to-make-life-more-interesting-a-philosopher-shares-3-strategies-to-help-you-attain-the-good-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/transform-the-daily-grind-to-make-life-more-interesting-a-philosopher-shares-3-strategies-to-help-you-attain-the-good-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Transform the daily grind to make life more interesting \u2013 a philosopher shares 3 strategies to help you attain the good life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lorraine Besser<\/a>, Middlebury<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine it\u2019s Monday morning, too cold and too dark, but once that alarm goes off, you know you\u2019ve got to rally. The kids have to get to school. You\u2019ve got to get to work. And, of course, your ever-growing to-do list hangs over your head like a dark cloud, somehow both too threatening to ignore and too threatening to start its tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On days like this, you may be grateful simply to make it through. But then it begins, all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While you can\u2019t escape the grind, you can transform it. The latest psychological research on the good life<\/a> points the way: By shifting your mindset, you can make your day-to-day more interesting and create psychological richness within your life. Psychological richness describes a robust form of cognitive engagement. It\u2019s distinct from happiness and meaning<\/a>, but just as important to the good life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In collaboration with Shigehiro Oishi<\/a> and his research lab, I\u2019ve investigated whether the field of positive psychology has largely overlooked<\/a> an important dimension of the good life. As the philosopher on our team<\/a>, I had two directives. First, I helped to define the concept of psychological richness and understand what distinguishes it from happiness and meaning. Second, I set out to explore why psychological richness is valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our initial studies<\/a> found that people value experiences that stimulate their minds, challenge them and generate a range of emotions. Many would choose a life full of these experiences, which we describe as psychologically rich, over a happy life or a meaningful life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This insight points to the important role psychological richness can play within the good life, but it stops short of explaining why it\u2019s good and why people ought to make space for psychological richness within their lives. These are value-laden questions that can\u2019t be answered through empirical research. Their answers are found instead through philosophical analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My philosophical analysis<\/a> suggests that psychological richness is good for you because it\u2019s interesting. My book, \u201cThe Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It<\/a>,\u201d shows how to add psychological richness to your life by making it more interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the easiest ways to do this is by embracing a mindset characterized by curiosity, creativity and what I call \u201cmindfulness 2.0.\u201d When you bring these three perspectives to your day-to-day, you transform the grind into endless opportunities to experience the world as interesting. You develop the capacity to enhance your own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mindfulness 2.0: Noticing without judging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What I call \u201cmindfulness 2.0\u201d means bringing nonevaluative awareness to the world around you \u2013 paying attention without judging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Familiar from mindfulness practices<\/a>, it\u2019s a form of noticing that brings forth details you typically overlook: the texture of a houseplant\u2019s leaves, the faces of the strangers you pass on the sidewalk, the differing heights of the cans on a store shelf. By bringing these details into your awareness, you stimulate your mind, allowing you to engage mentally with your surroundings in an active manner. Noticing things through mindfulness 2.0 is the first step toward having an interesting experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good place to practice mindfulness 2.0 is during your morning commute. Because it\u2019s routine, you probably don\u2019t feel the need to engage much with the details of what you are doing. Instead you\u2019ll find other ways to pass the time, such as listening to the news or your favorite podcast. These activities distract you from the otherwise boring commute by disengaging you from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
Noticing an intriguing pattern as birds gather overhead can engage your mind as you move through the world. Menahem Kahana\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But you can also get through the commute by engaging with it to make it less boring. Here\u2019s where the power of mindfulness 2.0 kicks in. Through actively noticing things around you \u2013 be it the people clustered at the bus stop, or the traffic patterns created by a stoplight, or a flock of birds swooping overhead \u2013 you engage your mind and set yourself up to experience the interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity: Exploring through questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity isn\u2019t just for kids. No matter how much you know, there\u2019s always something to be curious about \u2013 especially if you\u2019ve learned to notice the details through mindfulness 2.0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say you\u2019ve noticed, during your commute, the group of people gathered around the bus stop. Now let your curiosity take off: Was that bus stop always there? How long has that exceptionally weird real estate advertisement been stuck on the seatback? So many people lined up this cold morning. You might wonder if you\u2019d feel a little more connected if you were with them. But then you notice that no one is talking. Do they ride the same bus together, every day, without acknowledging each other?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through asking questions, you ask your mind to consider something it hadn\u2019t before. You create new thoughts, and if you let your mind keep going, you\u2019ll have an interesting experience, all the while making that same commute. Even better, you\u2019ll have created that interesting experience on your own. You\u2019ve harnessed an ability to enhance your life, an ability that\u2019s completely within your control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creativity: Trying something new<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While people often think of creativity as a talent, native only to artists or inventors, everyone has the ability to be creative<\/a>. Creativity is a skill that involves forming new connections<\/a> with your mind. You\u2019re creative whenever you do something new or different. Whether it is painting a brilliant landscape or wearing a new color combination, developing a new dish or simply tweaking a recipe, it all falls under the umbrella of creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"person
Exploring what your green thumb can coax to flourish is one creative path. Luis Alvarez\/DigitalVision via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When you are creative, in big or small ways, you generate novelty within your life, and this puts you on the path toward experiencing psychological richness. Novelty all but forces the mind to think and feel in new ways, stimulating that robust form of cognitive engagement that brings the interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even just a little bit of creativity will bring novelty to your day-to-day routine. Wear something you don\u2019t normally wear. Add a little flair to your handwriting or choose a different colored pen to write with. Change the patterns on your screen saver. Notice the impact these little tweaks have on your day. Little by little, they\u2019ll add up to make your day just a little more interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone\u2019s experience of what\u2019s interesting is unique. There\u2019s no one interesting experience for all of us, because the interesting depends entirely on how our minds engage, react and respond. Through developing mindfulness 2.0, and bringing curiosity and creativity to your experiences, you train your mind to engage, react and respond in ways that will transform any experience into an interesting one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the power a mindset can bring. It\u2019s a capacity to enhance our lives that anyone can develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lorraine Besser<\/a>, Professor of Philosophy, Middlebury<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lorraine Besser, Middlebury Imagine it\u2019s Monday morning, too cold and too dark, but once that alarm goes off, you know you\u2019ve got to rally. The kids have to get to school. You\u2019ve got to get to work. And, of course, your ever-growing to-do list hangs over your head like a dark cloud, somehow both too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,7,42,10,296,27,15533],"tags":[129,8831,885,891,886,860,426,581],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38397"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38460,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38397\/revisions\/38460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}