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Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
How does a good life feel?
Zadie Smith on Self-Actualization and the Pursuit of Happiness
Life Worth Living Team
"... a somewhat heavy American burden."
Listen on
The “American Dream” is one particularly tempting narrative of the good life.
Pairings
Our responses to life's big questions are meant to form a coherent whole—a vision of life worth living. A response to one question will fit well with certain responses to other questions, but it will be incompatible with others. We've provided the "Pairs Well With" and "Pairs Poorly With" sections for this article to help you consider these questions of coherence.
The “American Dream” is one particularly tempting narrative of the good life. While the American Dream may be articulated in many ways depending on the context of conversation, it is often portrayed as our ability to create our own life according to our own demands. But how does that feel?
In the following excerpt—prompted by a massive Corona ad outside her window that read “Find Your Beach”—novelist and essayist Zadie Smith reflects on this hyper-individualistic dream life as she experiences it in Manhattan:
[.alt-blockquote]“The dream is not only of happiness, but of happiness conceived in perfect isolation … Create this beach inside yourself. Carry it with you wherever you go. The pursuit of happiness has always seemed to me a somewhat heavy American burden, but in Manhattan it is conceived as a peculiar form of duty ... 'A reality shaped around your own desires'—there is something sociopathic in that ambition.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Zadie Smith, “Find Your Beach” in Feel Free, pp. 422 and 424[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider
- Do you think it's even possible to ever truly fulfill your own desires?
- Do you agree with Smith that the pursuit of happiness is burdensome? Or do you find the duty to achieve your own desires exciting?
- Does your pursuit of happiness make you feel happy?
- What role do other people play in your life when you set out to find your own “beach?”
- Is “isolated happiness” an oxymoron, or do you hope to find enjoyment without the influence of others?
- How does your perception of the American Dream agree or differ from the command to “find your beach?”
Context
- Zadie Smith's Feel Free
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 4: How does a good life feel?
Pairs Well With
- Theistic ideas about the need for our desires to be re-oriented toward God
- Emphasis on community as important for flourishing
Goes Poorly With
- Robust individualism
- “Hustle culture”
Pairings
Our responses to life's big questions are meant to form a coherent whole—a vision of life worth living. A response to one question will fit well with certain responses to other questions, but it will be incompatible with others. We've provided the "Pairs Well With" and "Pairs Poorly With" sections for this article to help you consider these questions of coherence.
The “American Dream” is one particularly tempting narrative of the good life. While the American Dream may be articulated in many ways depending on the context of conversation, it is often portrayed as our ability to create our own life according to our own demands. But how does that feel?
In the following excerpt—prompted by a massive Corona ad outside her window that read “Find Your Beach”—novelist and essayist Zadie Smith reflects on this hyper-individualistic dream life as she experiences it in Manhattan:
[.alt-blockquote]“The dream is not only of happiness, but of happiness conceived in perfect isolation … Create this beach inside yourself. Carry it with you wherever you go. The pursuit of happiness has always seemed to me a somewhat heavy American burden, but in Manhattan it is conceived as a peculiar form of duty ... 'A reality shaped around your own desires'—there is something sociopathic in that ambition.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Zadie Smith, “Find Your Beach” in Feel Free, pp. 422 and 424[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider
- Do you think it's even possible to ever truly fulfill your own desires?
- Do you agree with Smith that the pursuit of happiness is burdensome? Or do you find the duty to achieve your own desires exciting?
- Does your pursuit of happiness make you feel happy?
- What role do other people play in your life when you set out to find your own “beach?”
- Is “isolated happiness” an oxymoron, or do you hope to find enjoyment without the influence of others?
- How does your perception of the American Dream agree or differ from the command to “find your beach?”
Context
- Zadie Smith's Feel Free
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 4: How does a good life feel?
Pairs Well With
- Theistic ideas about the need for our desires to be re-oriented toward God
- Emphasis on community as important for flourishing
Goes Poorly With
- Robust individualism
- “Hustle culture”
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