The Better-than-Good Life

"Maybe you know, deep in your gut, that there has to be more to life. Whatever your reason for picking up this book, seize the momentum now. Because I have good news: There is more to life."

Lorraine Besser, a philosophy professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, makes this bold claim in her book, "The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It." Her premise is that, until now, advice on how to optimize your existence has centered around two basic ingredients: happiness and meaning.

Besser expands on that. "The Good Life is like a three-legged stool," she writes. "It needs the support of pleasure, fulfillment AND the interesting."

What exactly is "the interesting?" Besser says it's "composed of complex, novel and challenging experiences that stimulate and engage the mind," evoking different emotions and perspectives. The result: a psychologically rich life.

"The Art of the Interesting" details the whys (the reasons behind the importance of psychological richness) and the hows (strategies for embracing this essential component of a Good Life).

Besser offers a host of accessible ways to spark the interesting — simple ideas like taking backroads to your destination (yes, that would be the literal "road less traveled"), chatting up your barista, trying a new recipe, reading a new-to-you genre book, playing games like Wordle. Or Octordle. Or even Absurdle.

Ultimately, says Besser, the interesting is there for the taking — for all of us. "The great thing about psychologically rich experiences is that they're located within the mind," she claims; "they're internal to us, and they're available to everyone."

Ready to begin your quest for this new-and-improved Good Life? Next Avenue caught up with Besser to ask a few questions about that search.

Next Avenue: The central premise of your book is that philosophers and psychologists — going back to Aristotle — have posited a two-part formula for a Good Life: happiness/pleasure plus meaning/purpose. Your theory is that we need to go a step further and add psychological richness to the equation. Does that sound about right?

Lorraine Besser: Absolutely. The big thing motivating this book is the research I'd been doing with Dr. Shigehiro Oishi. Oishi (the Marshall Field IV Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Chicago) had this hunch that there was more to a Good Life than what we were studying or thinking about.

In our research we found that there's this category of experiences that is distinct from happiness and meaning — a set of experiences which we describe as psychological richness. And it often overlaps with happiness and meaning — but very often it doesn't.

So that's why we get this analogy of the three-legged stool. Because there's a lot we miss out on when we try to prop our lives up on only happiness and meaning.

Can you expand on what a psychologically rich life looks like?

It's a life full of these experiences that are often challenging, novel and complex — and that have this particular impact on the mind. They stimulate this robust form of cognitive engagement with the world around us that's somewhat free flowing. It's the kind of cognitive engagement where one thought will trigger another thought.

As a philosopher I've explored why psychologically rich experiences are valuable. The view I landed on is that they're valuable because they're interesting. What I mean is that the state of psychological richness that we develop through these experiences feels a certain way to us — it really resonates and triggers something in us. It's interesting, so we're attracted to it.

Do you think that perhaps psychological richness is the most important part of that three-legged Good Life stool?

I think it's important for everyone to have some aspect of happiness in their lives and some aspect of meaning and some aspect of psychological richness.

But the stool analogy is somewhat limited because they don't all need to be the same length. It's not that we need an equal balance of all three. We determine our own balance based on our individual experiences of each and how we feel that contributes to our lives.

You devote a couple of chapters to explaining why the Good Life formula of happiness plus meaning just doesn't cut it, that happiness is too fleeting and that meaning is too dependent on factors outside our control. Is a psychologically rich life attractive in large part because it doesn't have those drawbacks?

I think so. If we're thinking of the Good Life solely in terms of happiness and meaning, we're bound to fall short. We really can't sustain happiness across a lifetime and fulfillment is very difficult to attain.

I think one of the real advantages of incorporating psychological richness into our lives is that it can fill the spaces that can get left behind by these other categories, and that's going to lead to a very robust way of living a good life.

You note that, 'There is no formula that will lead to a psychologically rich life full of the interesting.' But you give readers plenty of ways to set the stage for the interesting to occur. One thing you point out is that 'the surest way to miss the interesting is to chase it head-on.' You call this chase the 'pursuit mode.' What exactly is 'pursuit mode' and how does the interesting blossom when we step back from it?

This is really important. Pursuit mode is a certain mindset that we can get into that's very much striving to attain some end. Our attention becomes very narrowed upon that which will help us get where we want to be.

And there's a lot of evaluating in pursuit mode. If something comes at you, you'll decide this helps my plan so it's good or that hurts my plan so it's bad. And if it has nothing to do with my plan, it's not worth my time.

I think both the striving that narrows our attention and the constant evaluating really block off a lot of potential for interesting experiences. It's a surefire way to miss the interesting.

You say that 'to experience the interesting we've got to feel safe.' And then you describe a 'sweet spot' that is slightly out of our comfort zone but stops decidedly short of our danger zone. How will we know when we've found that 'sweet spot?'

We all have a pretty good handle on what is safe and comfortable for us. Once we recognize that boundary then we can look at the outer edges of that and just dip our toe elsewhere and I think we'll feel the challenge. That's the hope — that we'll feel the challenge.

But we won't feel that it's dangerous or risky and we won't feel overwhelmed. When we start to do that that's where we get into the danger zone, here nothing good happens.

Of the many strategies you offer for fostering the interesting in our lives, which would you recommend that readers try first?

The most important baby step is opening your mind, holding space for the interesting to happen. Our minds really like to strive, to engage. Being curious is huge. Just stop and ask yourself: What? Why? How?

We can also look at  baby steps in terms of the outside stuff. One thing we can do is to actively introduce more novelty into our lives. That doesn't have to mean traveling to a developing country or doing anything extreme. It can literally mean just ordering something different for dinner.

You mention eating Jell-O with chopsticks in the book!

Yes! Or salad or whatever. It brings a whole new perspective to eating the same thing.

Some potential readers of your book may roll their eyes and moan, 'Oh no! Another self-help book!' But your book doesn't quite fit into that genre. Would you say it's actually challenging us to undergo a paradigm shift about the meaning of life?

I love that way of thinking about it. Yes, it's really changing our approach to living good lives and recognizing that the Good Life is not necessarily what we've been trained to think.

I think we can reorient ourselves particularly around our challenges and difficult emotions and recognize that they have a place in the Good Life, that they can prompt these psychologically rich experiences. And it's up to us to kind of harness them.

Is it a kind of counterculture thing?

Yes, particularly in the U.S. If we recognize that, for example, the pressures that we put on ourselves to achieve and to acquire more come from outside of us — they're optional and we can get rid of them. We can chip away at that and we'll probably live better lives if we do.

If you had to choose one thing you would like readers of your book to take away, what would that be?

I want them to come away with a feeling of agency over their lives. I want them to know that they can create interesting experiences and make their lives more valuable without having to change or fix things.

You can, on your own, make your life more valuable. I think that's huge, that's so important.

Marie Sherlock practiced law for a decade before turning to writing and editing in her 30s — and never looked back. She's worked as the editor of several publications and is the author of a parenting book (Living Simply with Children; Three Rivers Press). She spends her empty-nest days writing about travel trends and destinations, simplicity, spirituality and social justice issues. Read More