The four keys to well-being
Parent Post
Well-being is a skill.Well-being
Well-being is a skill.
Well-being is fundamentally no different than learning to play the cello. If one practices the skills of well-being, one will get better at it.
Well-being has four constituents that have each received serious scientific attention.
Practising these four skills can provide the substrate for enduring change, which can help to promote higher levels of well-being in our lives.
ResilienceResilience is the rapidity
Resilience
Resilience is the rapidity with which we recover from adversity.
Unlike the other constituents of well-being, it takes a while to improve your resilience.
It’s not something that is going to happen quickly—but this insight can still motivate and inspire us to keep meditating.
GenerosityWhen individuals engage in
Generosity
When individuals engage in generous and altruistic behavior, they activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.
When we engage in practices that are designed to cultivate kindness and compassion, we’re recognizing, strengthening, and nurturing a quality that was there from the outset.
OutlookThe second key to
Outlook
The second key to well-being—outlook—is in many ways the flip-side of the first one.
It is the ability to see the positive in others, savor positive experiences, and see another human being as a human being who has innate basic goodness.
Here, unlike with resilience, simple practices of loving-kindness and compassion meditation alter this circuitry quite quickly, after a very modest dose of practice.
Our brains are constantly
Our brains are constantly being shaped wittingly or unwittingly—most of the time unwittingly.
Through the intentional shaping of our minds, we can shape our brains in ways that would enable these four fundamental constituents of well-being to be strengthened.
In that way, we can take responsibility for our own minds.
AttentionIn a study, researchers
Attention
In a study, researchers used smartphones to query people as they were out in the real world, essentially asking three questions:
- What are you doing right now?
- Where is your mind right now? Is it focused on what you’re doing, or is it focused elsewhere?
- How happy or unhappy are you right now?
It was found that people spend an average of 47 percent of their waking life not paying attention to what they’re doing.
The ability to voluntarily
The ability to voluntarily bring back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will.
An education that sharpens attention would be education par excellence.
But, it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about.