As a child, I effortlessly found contentment. Whistling through a blade of grass brought sheer joy, my bicycle became a ship exploring neighborhood streets, and a serene afternoon reading beside my dog felt deeply satisfying. Because I demanded little, I sensed life’s abundance in these moments.
Now, contentment remains ever elusive. Life has become a restless pursuit of something just beyond my reach. Even pain—one of the body’s loudest signals—has sometimes failed to anchor me in the present. Several years ago, I accidentally sliced my finger deeply while cooking; yet, my immediate concern wasn’t about the injury itself but whether I’d miss an event planned for later that evening. At a moment when my body urgently required attention, my mind wandered elsewhere. Somewhere along the way, striving replaced simply being. Seneca observed: “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.” This insight captures a state easily accessible in childhood but often lost as we age. Why does this shift happen? Perhaps that intuition for what truly satisfies becomes obscured by the noise of adult life, clouded by the fear of judgment and the pressure to compete, to measure up, and to mistake striving with living.
This realization led me to ask several questions. How can we infuse our days with life rather than merely accumulating days in our lives? What, practically speaking, does it mean to live well? After careful reflection, I arrived at a guiding principle: a well-lived life maximizes fulfillment and minimizes regret.
Aristotle wrote of Eudaimonia, translated as human flourishing beyond mere happiness, achieved through actively living a life of excellence and virtue. This sounds simple, yet within it lies a profound challenge. Fulfillment—this deeper Eudaimonia—demands not only presence, courage, humility, and discipline but also clarity about what genuinely matters and discernment between meaningful objectives from fleeting distractions.
This pursuit of Eudaimonia involves actively choosing virtue and meaning. Conversely, failing to act decisively on what matters often paves the way for significant regret. Regret arises from both wrong actions taken and right actions delayed or never pursued at all. Hospice nurse Bronnie Ware documented the profound weight of inaction in the most common regrets of those nearing life’s end; these predominantly centered on failures to nurture deep connections, and chief among them was a regret of the courageous, authentic life not lived.
But what practical ends comprise such a well-lived life? Across geographies, cultures, and generations, a consensus emerges around the foundational pillars of a well-lived life: relational health, physical and mental health, existential health, financial health, and environmental and temporal health. These five pillars are interconnected aspects of a unified whole. Temporarily prioritizing one doesn’t mean neglecting the rest. Like life itself, well-being should be measured by trends rather than snapshots. A single good day won’t guarantee lasting wellness, just as one challenging day won’t derail it. Direction, intention, and the consistency of discipline matter most.
Embracing this long-term perspective, however, requires cultivating a discipline that often clashes with cultural demands. We live in a culture of little patience, yet real progress emerges gradually through small, intentional actions repeated consistently. Discipline is the quiet, steady commitment to small steps, even when no immediate reward appears. Jim Rohn expressed the consequence powerfully: “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” Without clarity, discipline lacks purpose; without discipline, clarity accomplishes little.
Central to discipline is accepting responsibility. Blaming external circumstances or others relinquishes our power to shape our lives. You may not be at fault for the events that happen to you, but you are ultimately responsible for how you move forward. We can even invert George Eliot’s insight—”Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too”—by choosing to “blame” ourselves for our response, thereby reclaiming our agency. The choice, however small, is always ours. This responsibility leans on the foundation of humility, which allows us to acknowledge our limitations and confront the flaws we’d rather ignore. Before change can occur, we must know the problem, accept it without resistance, and commit to the uncomfortable work of transformation.
Yet hesitation often seduces us. Dreaming without acting produces comfort because it avoids the potential for immediate failure and promises a possibility of success without risk. But dreams without action remain empty. The essential task is to narrow the gap between awareness and action, shrinking the distance between decision and deed. Until thought and action align, nothing changes. The straightforward approach is this: dream less and do more.
Nevertheless, a single action is insufficient. Persistence matters equally. Growth seldom follows a smooth, predictable path. It typically moves through familiar stages: naive optimism, confronting unforeseen challenges, facing discouragement and despair, and then finding renewed optimism grounded in reality. Many stop in the “valley of despair,” worn down by the inevitable failures. To navigate this reality without being crushed by it, we also need grace. Grace allows us to begin again; it accepts our imperfections as part of the process. Those who persist with grace emerge transformed by achieving a goal and the resilience gained.
Ultimately, the only moment we ever truly possess is this one, and even it quickly slips away. Each passing second disappears irretrievably, yet each arriving moment brings fresh opportunity. Brandon Sanderson captured this vividly: “The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step.”
An unintentional life can become something we passively endure. Actively crafted, it can instead be shaped through countless steps, deliberately, thoughtfully, and persistently, no matter how small each one may be. The quality of our lives builds not upon dramatic displays but through the persevering fortitude of continually choosing well, striving toward a life of purpose and connection, maximizing the occasions leading to fulfillment, and minimizing the chances of looking back with regret. Pursuing the pillars of a well-lived life—relational, physical and mental, existential, financial, and environmental and temporal health—is the challenging but ultimately worthwhile journey of crafting such an existence. While this path requires an effort that adolescent contentment did not, perhaps the reward is surprisingly similar: the capacity, once more, to sense life’s richness in the deliberate presence we bring to every moment.
