As with all pages on this website, the purpose here is to encourage your exploration. Since each person is unique, any answer to 'How should I live?' will be your decision.
As background, let's look at a brief summary of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Most people reading these pages will have addressed the early needs on Maslow's list. Some will feel a deep desire for something as yet unquantifiable, perhaps to understand life, or for a sense of meaning and purpose.
Some of the ways Western people choose to live are:
- acquiring possessions. This is a common response to increasing wealth and leisure time.
- seeking out pleasure, including food and entertainment.
- accumulating experiences such as travel, or trying new things.
- engaging in a period (even a lifetime) of study.
- devoting one's life to family and friends, usually in combination with one or more of the foregoing.
- expressing creativity, in fields such as art, writing, music, dance. If other people are also enriched, it moves beyond mere self-expression.
- engaging in service, such as helping those in need, or trying to save the planet.
- expanding awareness of existence, and of their unique place within it.
The latter relates to Maslow's self-actualisation. Self-actualisation begins in uncovering one's unique reason for being. This is usually a combination of what you do really well (often so well that you take it for granted), and that which brings special joy and vitality into your life. Ultimately self-actualisation expresses itself in what Frankl referred to as self-transcendence: moving beyond an egocentric focus to the essence that lies beneath and beyond your personality. Answering the question of how to live has preoccupied deep-thinking humans since we first appeared on Earth. Clearly, the answers deserve deep personal consideration over time.
In the meantime, let's explore further. Return to previous page