How To Know If You’re Flourishing
How To Know If You’re Flourishing
Answering these three questions regularly will give you deep insight into whether you're on a winning track in life.
I often use the word "human flourishing" when I talk about what my purpose is.
I talk about how I want to flourish as an individual and create human flourishing around the world.
But admittedly, I've struggled to communicate about human flourishing in a way that makes sense to some people.
But I think I have finally found a way to do it, and it has to do with making human flourishing as personal as possible.
Namely, it has to do with pointing out that someone who is maximally flourishing as an individual is someone who we can in good conscience identify as someone who reliably creates situations in which everyone wins.
In other words…
Flourishing people help everyone win.
On that note, I believe the most critical questions to ask if you want to maximally flourish are the following three:
MYSELF: Do my actions help me win?
Are my actions enabling me now and in the future to experience well-being in all dimensions of individual flourishing (e.g., spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, financial)?
HUMANITY: Do my actions help other people win?
Would people I meet and collaborate with say their lives are better because of my daily interactions with them?
ECOLOGY: Do my actions help nature win?
Are natural ecosystems and non-human sentient life better off because of what I do in life?
There's so much nuance and room for debate about how best to answer each of these questions. But there's no question that using these questions as a tool for self-reflection can help us understand where we are and where we might need to head in life.
Using Myself As A Case Study
Recently, I answered these questions for myself. And it was really thought provoking and illuminating. Here are my answers, which I plan to update at least once a quarter:
MYSELF: Do my actions help me win?
Yes, I think for the most part. I don’t make much money, but that’s only one dimension of flourishing, and I will be doing more to make more money soon. In terms of the other dimensions of individual flourishing, I am increasingly spiritually fulfilled; I am maintaining good physical fitness; I am deeply intellectually stimulated; I have more strong friendships and collaborators than ever before; and I’ve never felt closer to my family.
HUMANITY: Do my actions help other people win?
I think for the most part. I would say I am a good person to work with. I'm not sure there's a single person I work with who hasn't been helped by me in ways that are ancillary to our core collaboration if I have a way to help them. I just like to help people who I think are doing good for humanity. I think I treat other people well most of the time. This includes waiters, receptionists, taxi drivers, and other service workers. So, overall, I think most people I interact with would say their lives are better because of my presence, but now I wonder: "In what cases am I inadvertently making someone's life worse and not realizing it?”
ECOLOGY: Do my actions help nature win?
Are natural ecosystems and non-human sentient life better off because of what I do in life? I think this is where I am weakest. Can people who buy Apple products consider themselves All-Win if the products are made in sweatshops? If so, I am definitely not an All-Win actor. I also take airplanes more often than I would like. I think one way my environmental impact has improved is in my diet. I am working on becoming fully vegan, which (this may be a trigger for some) can be much better for the environment than the average meat-eating diet.
Answering each of these three questions alone was helpful, but then I began to inquire about the relationships between MYSELF & HUMANITY, HUMANITY & ECOLOGY, and ECOLOGY & MYSELF. After all, the dynamics of these dyadic relationships are meaningful and worth understanding.
I also began to ask myself questions such as
What are actions that individuals can take that not only help them personally win, but also help other individuals win?
What are actions that collectives like corporations and governments can take that help employees win, other human stakeholders win, natural ecosystems win, and all of humanity win?
How do we make it as easy as possible for individuals and collectives to be All-Win actors?
These questions are so juicy, and I can’t wait to dive in. But I will explore them in future posts :)
Until next time.
Love,
Gary
I want to shout out my friend Benjamin Life for planting the All-Win meme in my brain. Be sure to follow him and his new civic innovation accelerator, OpenCivics, on Twitter.