This is why a deliberate life equals a good life

Sometimes, I wake up too early. I did today, and finding myself in a reflective mood, I started pondering what a ‘good life’ means to me. The first thing I thought of was this:

A good life = living deliberately.

Well, I named my website Deliberate 1, didn’t I? This means I must take this matter seriously, right?

(Featured image: Woman and autumn leaves – AI-generated illustration.)

But what does it mean to live deliberately?

In particular, what does it mean for us who are already well past the midpoint of our lives? I brainstormed a bit, and these are the headlines I quickly came up with:

• Live with purpose.
• Do more good than harm.
• Change what can be changed.
• Be aware and responsible.
• Be authentic.
• Don’t waste time.

And they all seem to be tightly interconnected.

Let’s have a closer look.

Living with purpose

This means having a direction in life, which doesn’t necessarily mean having big and lofty goals. It’s more about having a sense of significance, something to influence our choices. Knowing what really matters to us helps us navigate in the right direction.

For some people, ‘purpose’ might mean choosing life objectives early on and desperately clinging to them for the rest of their lives. However, I think life is too complex and dynamic for this approach. Circumstances change, we change, and things happen outside our control.

So, living with purpose will require us to reinvent ourselves when necessary. For decades, our primary aim may have been establishing a sufficient career to earn a living and providing our children with the best possible upbringing. One day, this is achieved. Then what?

We must all choose what’s right for us if we want to live with purpose. I decided to use what I’ve learned from the peaks and abysses of my life so far to help other people, if possible. If reading what I have to share makes life seem a little bit brighter for someone, somewhere, then I have fulfilled my current purpose.

Do more good than harm

I admire the mentality of farmers in the past who took pride in passing the farm on to their heirs in a better condition than when they first took ownership. They toiled daily for 30 to 40 years of hard physical labour to improve their world—which, in their view, was the farm.

It appears that a moment of fame is what many people strive for these days—or achieving immense wealth. Very few attain these goals, and even if they do, what has been accomplished? Will 2 million followers on Instagram inherently make the world a better place? No. What about earning several hundred billion American dollars by selling the software most people have used since the 1980s? Not in itself.

I’m thinking of Bill Gates now, of course. You might like or dislike Microsoft, but Bill Gates decided to make a positive contribution at some point. He’s on his way to donating most of his fortune to charitable causes, like vaccination programs in developing countries.

I’m afraid my positive contributions to the world will be highly trivial in comparison. However, I will deliberately attempt to do more good than harm in this life.

Change what can be changed

If we want to contribute positively to the world with our limited resources, we must focus on what we can change. This isn’t a lazy excuse to avoid the big questions, such as climate change, just because our contribution will only be a microscopic pixel in an immense picture. We are all responsible for contributing what we can, even if it’s minor.

However, we shouldn’t waste energy on things that are impossible to change. The best example is our past. Most of us constantly wish this thing hadn’t happened, or what if that had been entirely different? I certainly think like this sometimes, and it’s not productive!

The past has passed, and there’s no way to change what has already happened—no way at all. On the other hand, our future is yet to come, and learning from the past to create a better future is definitely possible.

Still, some changes mean we’ll have to fight for them, and there are good reasons to choose our battles wisely. We have only this much time and energy, so we should do as every good general would: go to battle only if the probability of achieving something is acceptable. For instance, we can sometimes ignore or leave chronically toxic people instead of challenging them.

Be aware and responsible

Life is an endless train of decisions we must make, and I’ve realised I’ve made most of mine (until recently) on autopilot. How many things (big and small) have I just ‘let happen’ to comply with traditions, other people’s expectations, old habits, and my own fears instead of making conscious, responsible decisions myself? Way too many, I’m afraid.

It feels degrading not to have been the captain of my own life for so many years. You may also say I’ve been lazy, cowardly, and irresponsible not to grab the steering wheel earlier. However, the past has passed, and what matters is how I’m navigating the future.

This goes for all of us. We are responsible for our choices.

It’s true; we don’t always have much room to manoeuvre. Sometimes, we can’t make the choices we find ethically and personally preferable. However, we must be aware of our decisions, do our best, and hold ourselves accountable in the long run, even if some level of compromise is usually necessary. Stay awake!

Be authentic

I am what I am.

You are what you are.

We are all far from perfection and possess immense potential for improvement. Nevertheless, we are unique creations and perfectly adequate as we are right now. Even though it’s natural to play slightly different roles in different environments (e.g. at work and at home), we shouldn’t have to pretend we are someone we aren’t.

When I was young, I often played the clown, an often ridiculously drunk party animal, because this was easier than letting anyone see the wounds I carried inside. Later, I played the pedantic, detail-oriented, ‘do things right’ type for decades at work. As a pathological people-pleaser, this felt safer than being the always creative, somewhat whimsical, sometimes provoking, ‘do the right things’ authentic me.

I’ve tried how it is to be the authentic me for a while now, and, to be honest; I like this me much more than the previous ones.

Don’t waste time

The hard fact is that I know by now that my days are numbered. This also feels liberating because I have good reasons not to waste my time. I hope you feel the same because wherever we are in life, younger or older, the time we have left is not and has never been neverending.

Even though it’s easier said than done, we shouldn’t squander our days (or nights!) ruminating over the past or worrying about the future. Our lives happen now. As John Lennon sang in his song ‘Beautiful boy’: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Well, we do have to plan sometimes, but ceaseless worrying is something different.

Neither do we have the time to fill our lives to the brim with passive entertainment consumption, whether we’re watching TV, browsing social media, playing video games, or otherwise spending our time in pure idleness. Of course, sometimes we do need to rest and unwind for a while. That’s okay. But imagine one day asking ourselves, “What did I do with my life?” We shouldn’t want the answer to be: watching football and ‘Love Island’, or playing ‘Grand Theft Auto’.

We should fill our time with something that matters! For me, this means creating, learning, loving, and being loved. For you, it may be something else. Just make sure you live while you live because you might not get another chance.

This is all well, but how does a deliberate life equal a good life?

Well, what is a good life? Is it to be unquestionably happy all the time and absolutely pain-free, both physically and mentally? Of course not. I knew long ago that a good life is more than the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. When I recently started reading about positive psychology, I was happy to have this scientifically confirmed.

A good life is a life worth living. And a life can be perfectly worth living, even if we aren’t perpetually happy (who is, anyway?), even if life provides us with our fair share of pain. What seems clear to me after these early morning reflections is that a deliberate life is a meaningful life.

If I, in the end, can honestly say, “I have lived a meaningful life,” then I haven’t squandered my place in this world. I haven’t wasted the time I was given. And I can say, “I’ve had a good life.”

It’s time for my morning coffee now.