The Path to The Good Life
NOTE: If you’d rather listen than read, get the audio here.
I love First Fridays in Kansas City. My favorite neighborhood, the Crossroads, comes alive with crowds of people wandering the streets, dipping into open-late art galleries, exploring the wares of local makers and vendors, and being serenaded by street musicians.
The magic of First Fridays, though, is stumbling across unexpected surprises. I’ve encountered fire dancers, secret concerts, and a 7-foot snake in an alley, which, of course, I had to hold.
These evenings are built for exploration, letting go of any demands for the night and allowing the experience to unfold as it sees fit, at least the way I like to approach it.
My rules for a proper First Fridays:
1. It sprawls across many blocks, and you’re just not going to be able to see and do it all. Accept that.
2. So, let the parking gods determine where you start. See an open free parking space? That’s your sign. And if you Uber, as I often do, your drop-off point is either 1) the first location that comes to mind or 2) wherever is easy for the driver.
3. Begin playing Left, Right, Straight (which means wandering aimlessly, choosing left, right, or straight at each intersection you encounter). Don’t overthink it. Just let your feet decide.
4. With a few caveats. If you have the option to go over, under, or through, choose that. Some of the best gems are hidden in the alleys or up an obscure stairwell.
5. Go toward the music. Always.
6. See where the night takes you.
Last night, I had the pleasure of initiating someone into First Fridays, and it didn’t disappoint. With no agenda other than food is a must, we explored.
We experienced things that were beautiful (an utterly mesmerizing painting), adorable (the two little guys/future entrepreneurs who sold me ninja stars they’d origami-ed out of paper), unexpected (yep, another snake. This one draped around a woman’s neck as she passed us in the crosswalk), heartbreaking (the individuals bundled up asleep under a bridge), tasty (New York-style pizza), overwhelming (the smell in one shop), hilarious (the near-constant dramatic head tossing of the keyboard player with luxurious locks), and, honestly, lots of mediocre.
We ended the night at the Black Dolphin, a very cool jazz club I’ve somehow never been to, because our intended last stop, the Green Lady Lounge, was temporarily closed. I’m not complaining. The Black Dolphin was perfect!
All in all, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
“Good for you, Dr. Ashley,” you might be thinking. “But why in the world are you telling me this?”
Great question, my friend. Great question.
The Good Life
For better or worse, I pretty constantly think about The Good Life. What are the practices and philosophies, habits and mindsets, that create a joyous life? One that could be classified as happy and meaningful. One where Future Ashley, on her deathbed, looks back without regret.
Over the years of trying to answer that all-important question, I’ve learned a lot and have developed some strong opinions on what that path does and doesn’t look like.
I know it’s not the Pleasure Path.
The Pleasure Path
Experiencing pleasure isn’t a bad thing by any means, but chasing it as the primary goal backfires.
We get sated by the things that initially bring us pleasure—think the first bite of ice cream compared to the 100th.
And many sources of pleasure come with a cost. Think hangovers, sleep deprivation, poor health markers, missed professional opportunities.
The Pleasure Path also sets us up to believe that happiness hinges on enjoyment and, therefore, any sort of displeasure or discomfort is bad. Avoid it at all costs.
That doesn’t work out so well, either.
Avoiding the discomfort of hard conversations, hard work, and hard emotions drives all kinds of really unhelpful to categorically detrimental choices.
It’s time to step off the Pleasure Path.
Instead, think of First Fridays as a microcosm for The Good Life.
Have a destination, not a plan.
I do believe that we need some guidance, some sense of where we want to go, in order to live The Good Life.
That way you know when you’re veering too far off course.
But we take it too far when we plan, plan, plan.
I get it.
Sometimes we do, in fact, need a plan.
I didn’t get to a career in psychology without some semblance of one. I had a goal: earn my PhD. I identified the steps it took to do that, and I did them.
You had a plan for some (or many) aspects of your current life, too.
It may be as simple as deciding on dinner, then going to the grocery store to get the necessary materials. It may be as lofty as having a family or building your empire.
Planning has a time and purpose, but too often we over-plan.
We do so under the misguided notion that a plan will guarantee a certain outcome, prevent something bad from happening, or that we actually have the power and control to implement it.
But when has anything ever gone according to plan?
We need to loosen our grip.
That said, dear friend, I am not suggesting that we throw caution to the wind. Planning be damned!
Rather, I’m advocating for a First Fridays approach, a middle path, a Goldilocks zone.
Have a destination in mind. Set some goalposts: Go to the Crossroads. Go listen to jazz.
Then let life unfold. Adjust based on what you encounter. Seize opportunities as they come up, and trust that when some of your perfectly appropriate plans get thwarted, it might just be for the best, à la the Black Dolphin.
Be present.
To seize opportunities, you first have to notice them. That’s damn near impossible to do if you’re not present.
Unfortunately, at baseline, we’re not present about half the time.
Our attention is in our head, and we’re dwelling in the past or anticipating the future. We are not right here, right now.
Throw in modern life with its myriad distractions all competing for our precious attention, and I dare say that 50% estimate skyrockets.
When we’re buried in our devices, we’re missing life’s precious moments.
As are we when we’re caught up in judgments and expectations: this isn’t how it’s supposed to go! I don’t like this.
Or planning and anticipating: I don’t know where to go or what to do next? What if I make the wrong choice?
We need to be present in order to be flexible, adapt to changes in our world, and respond effectively in different contexts. Heck! We need to be present to even notice there are different contexts! (Running on the same scripts at home as you do at the office is unlikely to go over well with your family. Am I right?)
We need to be present, or The Good Life sneaks by under the radar.
Be open to experience.
Part of the challenge with presence is that sometimes the present isn’t pleasant.
Yet it is still worth experiencing, I promise you.
There is beauty in sadness, sweetness in pain.
There is growth in enduring something difficult.
Trying to allow only fun, desirable, easy, or good experiences is like trying to paint a masterpiece with only one or two colors.
You need black to get the right shading, white to indicate light. Reds and blues and yellows to mix and match to create something rich and beautiful.
Likewise, we need to weave ALL of our possible experiences into a beautiful, rich tapestry of life, which means being open.
We must be willing to experience the bad with the good, the hard with the easy, the desired with the undesired.
When you stop pushing away unwanted, when you stop demanding that this moment be different than it is, when you can set your sights, then step forward with open presence, there is space for the path to The Good Life to appear.
The image that just popped into my mind is that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he is facing a wide open chasm, which he must cross to save his father. There’s no bridge, and the other side is too far away to jump.
Yet he takes a step forward.
Seemingly about to plunge to his death, his foot lands on an invisible yet solid surface, and the path unfolds before him with each new step.
Be like Dr. Jones, my friend. Know where you want to go, take a chance, and allow life to unfold for you.
Getting to the Good Life
I think that learning to embrace the moment-to-moment unfolding is the key to The Good Life.
It’s not a linear path.
It is not a “You Are Here” and chart the course to “There” situation where you just put your head down and book it forward as fast as you can.
You’ll never get There.
It’s like chasing the horizon. No matter how far forward or how fast you go, the horizon will always remain in the distance.
The Good Life isn’t a destination.
The Good Life is the journey itself.
“I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go.”
Are you ready to live a bolder, happier life?
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