We discussed this post in one of our article reading club meetings and I thought I would share some of the discussions we had around the topic in bullet points. As a disclaimer, I am writing this comment 6 weeks after the meeting so I have probably misinterpreted some of my notes.
- How are these kinds of models built? Operalization was a new concept for a few participants.
- What do we think is the most important for well-being looking at the answers the different models provided? We mostly talked about meaningfulness, mental health and relationships.
- What is the definition of self-respect? Do we need other people’s respect if we already respect ourselves?
- Are the indicators relative to the standard of each of our experiences or something else? Does the scale (e.g. 1-5) vary a lot across indicators? E.g. going from 1 to 2 in one indicator might be a larger increase in wellbeing than in another.
- Are these theories too western-focused? Most theories seemed to stem from USA/Europe. Talked a bit about Buddhism.
- We also discussed stoicism, saving lives playfully and doing everything we have in our power (to improve the world or reach our goals) without taking it too seriously. How big a role does one’s own attitudes and personality play in increasing well-being independently of the circumstances?
- Sometimes individual wellbeing can conflict with societal wellbeing
- How can we increase wellbeing the most using the resources we have and the theories in this post? It is easier to think about one’s own life but how about e.g. trying to maximize the quality of relationships for as many as possible? We didn’t have any ideas about this yet.
We discussed this post in one of our article reading club meetings and I thought I would share some of the discussions we had around the topic in bullet points. As a disclaimer, I am writing this comment 6 weeks after the meeting so I have probably misinterpreted some of my notes.
- How are these kinds of models built? Operalization was a new concept for a few participants.
- What do we think is the most important for well-being looking at the answers the different models provided? We mostly talked about meaningfulness, mental health and relationships.
- What is the definition of self-respect? Do we need other people’s respect if we already respect ourselves?
- Are the indicators relative to the standard of each of our experiences or something else? Does the scale (e.g. 1-5) vary a lot across indicators? E.g. going from 1 to 2 in one indicator might be a larger increase in wellbeing than in another.
- Are these theories too western-focused? Most theories seemed to stem from USA/Europe. Talked a bit about Buddhism.
- We also discussed stoicism, saving lives playfully and doing everything we have in our power (to improve the world or reach our goals) without taking it too seriously. How big a role does one’s own attitudes and personality play in increasing well-being independently of the circumstances?
- Sometimes individual wellbeing can conflict with societal wellbeing
- How can we increase wellbeing the most using the resources we have and the theories in this post? It is easier to think about one’s own life but how about e.g. trying to maximize the quality of relationships for as many as possible? We didn’t have any ideas about this yet.
Thank you for writing this post David!