Transform the daily grind to make life more interesting – a philosopher shares 3 strategies to help you attain the good life

Imagine it’s Monday morning, it’s too cold and too dark, but once the alarm goes off you know you need to get your act together. Children must go to school. You have to get to work. And, of course, your ever-growing to-do list hangs over your head like a dark cloud, both too threatening to ignore and too threatening to begin its tasks.

On days like this, you might be grateful just to get through it. But then it all starts again.

Although you can’t escape routine, you can transform it. The latest psychological research on the good life shows the way: by changing your mindset, you can make your daily life more interesting and create psychological wealth in your life. Psychological wealth describes a robust form of cognitive engagement. It’s separate from happiness and meaning, but equally important to a good life.

In collaboration with Shigehiro Oishi and his research lab, I investigated whether the field of positive psychology has largely neglected an important dimension of the good life. As the philosopher on our team, I had two directives. First, I helped define the concept of psychological wealth and understand what distinguishes it from happiness and meaning. Second, I set out to explore why psychological wealth is valuable.

Our early studies found that people enjoy experiences that stimulate their minds, challenge them, and generate a range of emotions. Many would prefer a life full of these experiences, which we describe as psychologically rich, rather than a happy life or a meaningful life.

This idea highlights the important role that psychological wealth can play in a good life, but it falls short of explaining why it is good and why people should make room for psychological wealth in their lives. These are value-laden questions that cannot be answered through empirical research. Rather, their answers are found through philosophical analysis.

My philosophical analysis suggests that psychological wealth is good for you because it is interesting. My book, “The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Quest for the Good Life and How to Cultivate It,” shows how to add psychological richness to your life by making it more interesting.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to adopt a mindset characterized by curiosity, creativity, and what I call “mindfulness 2.0.” When you integrate these three perspectives into your daily life, you transform everyday life into endless opportunities to experience the world in interesting ways. You develop the ability to improve your own life.

Mindfulness 2.0: noticing without judging

What I call “mindfulness 2.0” is about bringing non-evaluative awareness to the world around you – paying attention without judging.

Familiar with mindfulness practices, it’s a form of observation that brings out details you usually overlook: the texture of a houseplant’s leaves, the faces of strangers you pass on the sidewalk, the different heights of cans on a store shelf. By becoming aware of these details, you stimulate your mind, allowing you to actively engage mentally with your surroundings. Noticing things through mindfulness 2.0 is the first step towards an interesting experience.

A good place to practice mindfulness 2.0 is during your morning commute. Because it’s routine, you probably don’t feel the need to pay much attention to the details of what you’re doing. Instead, you’ll find other ways to pass the time, like listening to the news or your favorite podcast. These activities distract you from the otherwise boring commute by disengaging you from it.

But you can also do the journey by committing to it to make it less boring. This is where the power of mindfulness 2.0 comes in. By actively noticing things around you – whether it’s the people gathered at the bus stop, the traffic patterns created by a red light, or a flock of birds flying overhead – you engage your mind and prepare yourself for the interesting experience.

Curiosity: exploring through questions

Curiosity is not just for children. No matter how much you know, there’s always something that sparks your curiosity, especially if you’ve learned to notice details through mindfulness 2.0.

Suppose you noticed, during your journey, a group of people gathered around the bus stop. Now let your curiosity run wild: was this bus stop still there? How long has this exceptionally strange real estate ad been stuck to the back of your seat? So many people were waiting in line this cold morning. You might wonder if you would feel a little more connected if you were with them. But then you notice that no one is speaking. Do they get on the same bus together, every day, without recognizing each other?

By asking questions, you are asking your mind to think about something it hasn’t done before. You create new thoughts, and if you let your mind continue, you will have an interesting experience, while still taking the same journey. Better yet, you will have created this interesting experience yourself. You have harnessed an ability to improve your life, an ability that is entirely within your control.

Creativity: trying something new

While people often think of creativity as a talent unique to artists or inventors, everyone has the ability to be creative. Creativity is a skill of making new connections with your mind. You are creative every time you do something new or different. Whether it’s painting a brilliant landscape or wearing a new color combination, developing a new dish or simply tweaking a recipe, it’s all creativity.

When you are creative, in ways big or small, you generate novelty in your life, which puts you on the path to experiencing psychological wealth. Novelty virtually forces the mind to think and feel in new ways, stimulating that robust form of cognitive engagement that brings the interesting.

Even a little creativity will bring novelty to your daily life. Wear something you don’t usually wear. Add some flair to your writing or choose a different colored pen to write with. Change the patterns on your screen saver. Notice how these small adjustments impact your day. Little by little, they will add up to make your day a little more interesting.

Everyone’s experience of what is interesting is unique. There is no such thing as an interesting experience for all of us, because interest depends entirely on how our minds engage, respond, and react. By developing Mindfulness 2.0 and bringing curiosity and creativity to your experiences, you train your mind to engage, respond, and respond in ways that transform any experience into an interesting one.

This is the power that a mindset can bring. It is a capacity to improve our lives that everyone can develop.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization that brings you trusted facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Lorraine Besser, Middlebury College

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Lorraine Besser received funding for this research from the Templeton Foundation, in coordination with Saint Louis University, and Middlebury College.