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Positive psychologists are drawn to what we need to thrive. Consistent with this pursuit, Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi (2003) describe life as colored with both absorbed pleasure and meaning. significant engagement. An absorbing and meaningful relationship with life can itself be viewed as a series of positive experiences. (Nakamura, 2002) And it may be worth exploring the path to the ‘good life’.
Push and pull experience
Flow is a psychological state of interest and preoccupation with an activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), which can exist without meaning (such as when engaging in engrossing wordplay). Experience engagement that matters. We know that meaning emerges as a result of a “push” experience (memento mori ah-ha’s, the death of someone close to us, mild and severe trauma. Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Nevertheless, there is also a ‘pull’ model of meaning generation, which explains the joyful assimilation of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). Further flow-like experiences and long-term engagement in flow activities sow the seeds of meaning that take root and blossom.Simply put, flow may pave the way to meaning (Nakamura, 2002).
claim leisure
Significant engagement, and therefore meaning, can be gained through activities that may initially be viewed as hedonic. The amount of time we spend in leisure (any effort that can optimize well-being (Freire, 2008)) has been shown to be one of the stronger correlates of life satisfaction (Newman, Tay, & Diener, 2013). Leisure pursuits have also been shown to play an important role in providing meaningful eudaimonic engagement in life through several interconnected themes that undoubtedly deepen our lives (Iwasaki , Messina, & Hopper, 2018). According to Iwasaki et al. (2018), leisure plays an important role in facilitating happy life (ripe for the cultivation of positive emotions), connected life (building relationships with others), structured life (with more control and autonomy)empowered lifeWhen life found—The end leads to meaningful lives through the exploration and expression of our unique talents and strengths.
Deciding how to spend leisure time is intrinsically motivated, self-initiated (Gallagher et al., 2012) and enhances a sense of self-determined autonomy (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Applying the spirit of vitality to your free time can help you align with your eudaimonic essential goals and experience a greater sense of self-actualization (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
Free time “Zest Zone”
The concept of time abundance, the feeling that we have enough time to participate in the activities that really matter to us, has also been shown to be positively related to subjective well-being. People with high time abundance report spending more time participating in personal development activities, connecting with others, and physical activity (Kasser & Sheldon, 2009). Too little leisure time increases stress, and too much free time undermines a sense of accomplishment and purpose (Sharif, Mogilner, and Hershfield, 2018); Finding the ‘zest zone’ of our free time seems to be of the utmost importance to optimizing our well-being.
Encourages Thinking About Mortality
What we know to be true about the ontological conflict is that it causes a sense of time scarcity. (King, Hicks, Abdelkalik, 2009) And our priorities are finer-tuned in the face of perceived lifespan deadlines (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, and Charles, 1999).by getting involved memento mori Interventions that encourage us to think about the inevitability of death can help us reprioritize how we want to spend our time. So, at the same time, we can choose activities that bring us joy (such as a hobby of learning how to draw) and also deepen their meaning (by connecting with people). experience a sense of accomplishment, experience creative expression, etc.).
Engagement: an ointment for meaninglessness
Yalom and Josselson (2014) similarly argue that engagement is the remedy for the nonsense problem.When we are fully engaged in many endeavors, such as caring for people and projects, participating in activities to learn, grow, and create new things, we are fully appear in our lives. This commitment to participation in life reduces the nagging anxiety of meaninglessness and, more gutturally, the problem of life’s finiteness. , is what connects vitality and meaning. Playing life to the fullest without sitting on the sidelines enhances our sense of being alive and, as a result, our awareness of meaning.
