In these challenging times, as we’re all reconsidering where and how work slots into our lives, what should we be aiming at?
fulfilling personal goals, making progress, and accumulating accomplishments – all features of eudaimonic happiness, not the hedonism we associate with leisure.This orientation sits well with a new concept in the field of wellbeing studies: that a rich and diverse experiential happiness is the third component of a “good life,” in addition to hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. recently found that most people would still prefer a happy life typified by hedonic happiness.
Given these different approaches to life, perhaps the key to long-lasting wellbeing is to consider which lifestyle suits you best: hedonic, eudaimonic, or experiential. Rather than pitching work against life, the real balance to strike post-pandemic is between these three sources of happiness.Lis Ku is a senior lecturer of psychology at De Montfort University.