Psychology in the Good Life

My humanities class has discussed the good life within certain topic such as “service,” “fighting,” “religion,” etc. These are not even close to half of the amount of topics that can be tied to the notion of the good life. I brainstormed several topics which led me to decide to integrate my own interest—psychology (which is my major and my passion). Psychology has been brought up several times in some of the discussions because it does in fact play a role in the good life. Whenever we talk about identity, we take into consideration the possible social/cultural influences that can account for our morals and beliefs. Some of my peers have also touched the evolutionary and biological psychology aspect of the field. Overall, psychology itself is very much eclectic, and if I were to describe my humanities class in one word, it would also be “eclectic.” We are a mixed pot filled with diverse outlooks towards the world and ourselves, but our differences is what unites us. There is a new field of psychology called “Positive Psychology” and the name speaks for itself. This field actually focuses on the good life and the ability to achieve absolute self-actualization through achievement of our good lives. Martin Seligman, a pioneer of Positive Psychology, introduced the concept (he actually did so on accident because the results of an experiment led to more answers than he initially thought) and explored not only why happy people are happy, but how to use the scientific method to actually explore it. (It is also interesting to note that Psychology used to be considered a philosophy before it became a science.) But, philosophy is very visible within Positive Psychology because the vision of happiness itself can be subjective. In other words, to each his own happiness. Through a combination of ethics derived from Confucius and Aristotle with modern psychological theories of emotion and motivation, Seligman continues to explores the good life and we, too, have explored with him.

So far we have learned from Positive Psychology that the "good life" includes possibly experiencing more upbringing and encouraging (positive) escapades than negativite ones. A good life, according to this particular psycholgical approach, is not one in which a person claims to have done enough with their life; it is one in which you continue using your talents, strengths, and motivation in order to reinforce self-development. This approach also stretches beyond oneself because it is also concerned with how this can strengthen close interpersonal relationships, how being engaged with our work can affect us as indivudals and as a society, and how all these variables shape the ways we perceive a life that we claim has meaning. Even though at first, what psychology proves and suggests seems like "common sense," people tend to still fail at recognizing exactly how to obtain and maintain these qualities. Psychology continues researching various procedures a person can test, but for the most part, it is up to the inidivdual to choose which method works best for them because after all, everyone is different. In Psychology, it would be far too difficult trying to adopt an entire micro perspective that successfully weaves a complete picture of the human experience, just as it is difficult trying to agree to one "right" explanation of a topic in my humanities class. Overall, Positive Psychology indeed does also teach us that in order to go beyond the expectations we have of ourselves now, we must branch out, and go on the opposite end of the spectrum of what we call “balance” (where our comfort zone lies). From there, we must continue to soar forward into what we believe we may be able to achieve without any hesitation and limitation.