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The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What About the Balanced Life?

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The Exploration of Happiness

Part of the book series: Happiness Studies Book Series ((HAPS))

Abstract

Martin Seligman, in his very popular book Authentic Happiness (Seligman 2002), argued that authentic happiness is derived from three major sets of experiences in life, namely experiencing pleasantness regularly (the pleasant life), experiencing a high level of engagement in satisfying activities (the engaged life), and experiencing a sense of connectedness to a greater whole (the meaningful life). In this chapter, we maintain that balance in life contributes significantly to subjective well-being. Balance contributes to subjective well-being because of the satisfaction limit that people can derive from a single life domain. People have to be involved in multiple domains to satisfy the full spectrum of human development needs. Different life domains tend to focus on different human developmental needs. More specifically, balance contributes to subjective well-being because subjective well-being can only be attained when both survival and growth needs are met. High levels of subjective well-being cannot be attained with satisfaction of basic needs or growth needs alone. Both needs have to be met to induce subjective well-being.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061-0236, USA

    M. Joseph Sirgy

  2. Management and Marketing Department, School of Management, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI 02908, USA

    Jiyun Wu

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  1. M. Joseph Sirgy
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  2. Jiyun Wu
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Correspondence to M. Joseph Sirgy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Pathophysiology, and Transplantation, University of Milan, Via G.B. Grassi 74, Milan, 20157, Italy

    Antonella Delle Fave

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Joseph Sirgy, M., Wu, J. (2013). The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What About the Balanced Life?. In: Delle Fave, A. (eds) The Exploration of Happiness. Happiness Studies Book Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5702-8_10

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