What Does It Mean to Live a Good Life?
Philosophy, religion, modern self-help so much of it returns to one central question: What does it mean to live a good life?
It’s an eternal question, perhaps the question. And lately, I’ve found myself asking it each morning as I wake. It’s not that I expect a different answer every day but the asking gives me direction. It helps me begin the day with intention, not inertia.
Not long ago, I had a day that felt unproductive. I hadn’t achieved what I intended. But stepping back, I realised something: one unproductive day does not equate to a bad life. That moment of reflection pushed me deeper. What does good even mean?
The Definition of Good
The word “good” is not fixed. It’s shaped by experience, by upbringing, by what we’ve read and who we’ve listened to. It evolves. But if “good” changes does that mean we can never know it?
I don’t think so.
We can know what is good at least partially, and often intuitively. But we cannot know all of it. Our capacity as humans is limited. What we can do is expand and refine our understanding of good and build the discipline (and environment) where we can act on it.
As Marcus Aurelius put it:
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
— Meditations, Book 10, §16
Or, in the words of the New Testament:
“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
— James 2:17, New International Version (NIV)
It is both the knowing and doing that makes good good.
It is both the big life decisions and the moment-to-moment choices. What you do when no one is watching. How you respond when someone cuts you off. Whether you tell the truth when it costs you.
Knowing Yourself: The Foundation of Goodness
But how can we hope to live a good life if we don’t know the person who’s meant to live it?
In my reflections on selfhood drawing from both Stoicism and Freud I’ve come to see five parts of ourselves: the primal Id, the socialised Ego and Superego, the Rational Mind, and the quiet Soul. (You can read more on this in my post Know Thyself.)
The key point is this: our impulses, our self-image, even our moral judgments are not always rational. Much of who we are is shaped by childhood, culture, trauma, fear. The Rational Mind what the Stoics see as our highest faculty must often work to re-integrate the rest.
If we don't do that inner work, we risk mistaking fear for wisdom, pride for virtue, or inherited dogma for truth. We may convince ourselves we're living well when in reality we're just living predictably.
Living a good life demands self-knowledge. And self-knowledge requires humility. It asks that we look within, not to judge, but to understand. As Socrates put it:
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
— Plato, Apology, 38a
What Makes a Good Life?
If not wealth, if not fame, if not comfort then what?
The Stoics tell us that external things health, wealth, reputation are neither good nor bad. They are indifferent. What matters is virtue your character, your choices, your inner state. That is within your control.
You can’t always choose what happens to you. But you can choose how you meet it.
And that doesn’t just mean responding calmly in a crisis. It means working on yourself so that your automatic responses, your instincts, your habits slowly begin to reflect the kind of person you want to be.
That’s the real work. The quiet, patient, thankless work. Not becoming perfect, but becoming congruent. Where your actions match your values. Where your outer life reflects your inner one.
The Practice of the Good Life
Living a good life isn’t a destination. It’s not a state you reach and then maintain forever. It’s a rhythm. A return. A reorientation sometimes daily, sometimes hourly.
To live a good life is not to reach a moral summit. It’s to keep walking.
To keep asking better questions.
To keep choosing the harder but kinder path, again and again.
It is to listen to others.
Marcus Aurelius said:
"If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. It is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. The harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance."
That second point to listen, to learn is key. You cannot live a good life in isolation. Morality requires relationship. It requires feedback. It requires failure, and the courage to try again.
If we’re only ever guided by our own sense of right and wrong, we risk becoming rigid, arrogant, or cruel. But if we never trust ourselves, we become passive, afraid, and small.
So we must walk a middle path confident, but teachable. Committed, but flexible.
A Closing Thought
So no, living a good life isn’t easy. It’s not straightforward. It can’t be captured in ten steps or a morning routine. But it is possible.
It starts with a question.
What would it look like for me to be a good person here, today?
Ask it. And then ask it again tomorrow.
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