What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

I feel like this prompt can lead to very subjective answers from people, and yet I’m sure there have been attempts at objective studies to determine something more accurate.

I’m on the subjective side of this, so maybe take what I say with a grain of salt.

To live a good life means being happy, healthy, safe, never needing anything we can’t have, and never having to go through significant or insurmountable hardship to get what we want.

Sounds rather like a Utopia.

Unfortunately, we can’t have all of that and will have to settle for just a few things.

Happiness is subjective and can be dependent on the latter two things I mentioned before.

So, let’s settle for healthy and safe.

Healthy being appropriately well-fed, access to clean water, not undernourished or sick, and receiving sufficient medical care when needed.

Safe has multiple layers. One is that we live without fear of pain or persecution stemming from hatred, racism, and bigotry. No acts of violence perpetrated against each other. No severely risky jobs just to make ends meet. Industries not cutting corners to keep costs down and profits up at the expense and well-being of the workers. (This last one overlaps with the healthy category.)

Beyond that is the happiness aspect supported by fulfilled needs and wants. That’s where the “good life” is.

Who do you spend the most time with?

What counts as “spending time with someone” these days? Do we just have to be in the same room/close proximity and not speaking to each other? Does it count if I’m spending a large chunk of my day at work in a cubicle and there are people around me that I may not talk to at all?

If that last bit counts, it’s definitely people at work, much to my dismay. I spend more time with my family on the weekends than I typically do with my roommates throughout the entire week because after work I spend maybe anywhere from a couple minutes to half an hour with my roommates before I retreat to my room or my computer setup in the basement.

The only instances of significant time spent with one of the roommates is when we play Magic with our friends. Those nights can run from as early as 5:00PM til Midnight (usually shorter) and only happen once a week or less. These days usually less.

Now, to change things up, could you count time spent in Discord voice calls with online friends as “spending time together”? If so, that can be significant time after work and on the weekends. We play lots of games together, so it would make sense to count it.

How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

Musically minded people probably read the title and think I’m going to play some kind of instrument. Sorry to say, but I don’t play anything.

Taking the time to “unplug” is easy enough to accomplish sometimes. To me, what matters is WHY are we unplugging and what from?

Am I unplugging from just social media? From messaging apps? TV, movies, and games? The internet as a whole?! Each thing has a similar impact but I have noticed subtle differences between their affects on my mind.

All of them are a form of consumption, of mental stimulation, so when you turn the faucet (or let’s be real, it’s more like a fire hose) of information off, you go through a few things. Somewhere in the beginning it’s like withdrawal, but pushing through you start becoming more productive. At least, that’s how I feel. I go from “consumer mode” to “creator mode”, and thanks to this daily blogging journey I make time for I now have a daily brief respite. I can’t consume and create at the same time, so that’s a kind of momentary unplugging.

Cutting out social media, especially Facebook, means less doom scrolling. My mental state improves each time I make that decision. How I go about it has been simple. Either I uninstalled the app or I’ve hidden it away from my phone’s home screen. I’ve hidden the bookmarks on my computer as well. Out of sight, out of mind.

Messaging apps like Discord I just mute every server I’m in so I don’t get bombarded with notifications (because that’s obnoxious) so I don’t have as much of an issue there, but I still have to disconnect/unplug from it for a while somehow. When I do that I just put my phone on Do Not Disturb.

TV, movies, and games are harder. In recent years I’ve just had to tell myself “no more, put it down for a while” and I can step away to focus on other things. If I do it long enough I can come back to the games part feeling a little refreshed, because honestly it can feel like a grind even in non-grindy games. I need those breaks.

I should unplug more often and find better ways to do it.