Psychological Richness

Hi,

This week’s email is about an important (and often neglected) aspect of our wellbeing.

Here are the key practical points you should know (mainly from this research article):

• Wellbeing is the quality of feeling that you’re having a good life.

• The two best-known aspects of wellbeing are hedonic happiness, which involves feeling pleasure and avoiding pain, and eudaimonic happiness, which involves feeling a sense of meaning and self-realization. But, another important aspect is psychological richness, which involves having a variety of interesting experiences.

• Experiences are particularly likely to promote psychological richness when they’re novel, unexpected, or complex, and when they lead to changes in our perspective.

• We’re more likely to achieve psychological richness the more curious, open to experience, and spontaneous we are. However, practical considerations, like having the time and energy to experience new things, also play a huge role.

• The different aspects of wellbeing are interrelated, for example in the sense that an experience that brings psychological richness can sometimes also bring a sense of meaning. Sometimes, though, we have to prioritize one aspect over the others, like when we have to choose between a straightforward hedonic experience or a challenging but psychologically rich one.

As always, I’m happy to hear your thoughts.

Have a great week,
Itamar