How Travel and Adventure Factor into an Equation of the Good Life

Toward a Theory of Life Satisfaction

Photo by Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash

“It’s true that your genes and experiences shape the way you see the world, the way you interact with other people, and the way you respond to negative feelings. And it is certainly true that opportunities for economic advancement and basic human dignity are not equally available to all, and some of us are born into positions of significant disadvantage. But your ways of being in the world are not set in stone. It’s more like they are set in sand. Your childhood is not your fate. Your natural disposition is not your fate. The neighborhood you grew up in is not your fate…Nothing that has happened in your life precludes you from connecting with others, from thriving, or from being happy. People often think that once you get to adulthood, that’s it—your life and your way of living are set. But what we find by looking at the entirety of research into adult development is that this just isn’t true. Meaningful change is possible.”

- Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

“What is the good life?” has been a core philosophical and existential question for humanity for thousands of years. I’ve wondered lately if there is a general equation of happiness—or what is now preferentially labeled well-being, contentment, fulfillment, flourishing, or satisfaction in positive psychology, a field that aims to focus on the positive qualities of human life. I like all these terms but favor “life satisfaction” and I have a working hypothesis as to the core general features that contribute to this “theory of life satisfaction” as I’ve termed it.

Broadly speaking, there are many mental, physical, and emotional practices and habits we can cultivate that are useful in alleviating a lot of the negative feelings we are often forced to confront throughout our lives—anger, depression, trauma, anxiety, fear. For instance, actively meditating, exercising, and establishing healthy relationships all contribute to various positive outcomes that tamp down the extremes of these negative emotions. There are a range of scientific and cultural reasons behind why and how all these things are good for us but suffice it to say that there are several critical aspects of life worth developing that aid in reducing things like fear, anxiety, and depression and also allow us to live a more optimal life.

While I think many factors contribute to the well-being of humans and do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all equation to the good life, I do think there are some general features that definitively contribute to a well-lived life. This rough equation, or rather working hypothesis, toward a “theory of life satisfaction” looks like this:

Life Satisfaction = autonomy + sustainable relationships and a positive social network + a routine of physical exercise + intellectual/creative outlet/hobbies + consistent travel or adventure + a healthy diet + laughing often

• Briefly, autonomy means we have the capacity to author our own lives–that we have some control over how we spend our time and an ability to live how we please. This is perhaps one of the most fundamental features of obtaining a satisfied life because it bolsters all the other elements in the equation of the good life. When we are afforded enough time and control over our lives, all our decisions tend to be more informed and for the better.

• Having sustainable relationships and a positive social network means that our friends, families, and communities are present in our lives to celebrate the good times and help us through the tough times. These relationships also extend into the realm of the sexual as having an active and healthy sex life isn’t just fun but contributes enormously to one’s physiological and psychological well-being. 

• Acquiring some routine of physical exercise will depend on each individual's aptitude and discretion but it’s no secret that being physically active in something provides one with a plethora of physical, mental, emotional, and social benefits. Whether it’s a simple ten-minute walk every day, basketball, training a martial art, or climbing Everest, we all need something that keeps us moving.

• Whether it is art, reading, writing, music, fishing, hunting, chess, or some other activity that stimulates our mind, having some intellectual, creative outlet, or hobby is also at the core of enhancing one’s drive or purpose in life. Most of what people mean when they say they want to live in a free and robust civilization is that they can pursue some higher purpose and it is often through some creative outlet or group activity that we discover the things that bring our lives meaning. 

• When it comes to wandering, I have outlined elsewhere some of the main benefits travel and adventure offer us. Travel and adventure have an immense capacity to alleviate negative emotions, provide therapy, gain self-reliance, connect us with others, and broaden our perspective of the world. I will expand more on this variable below.

• Every doctor, nutritionist, and health expert on the planet has been telling us for generations that having a healthy diet is strongly correlated with numerous benefits from increased lifespan to improving our moods. Although many of us struggle to find the “right diet” and the scientific communication on what is and isn’t good for you seems always to be changing, investing more of our time and attention to moderate what we consume is going to have one of the most consequential impacts on us in the long-term. 

• Lastly, having a sense of humor and laughing often may be some of the most underappreciated features that contribute to our well-being. Humor likely plays a vital role in carrying us through both the good and dark moments of life as well as providing us with healthy benefits, like reducing stress and improving our immune systems.

An important takeaway from all this is that no single one of these things is going to sustain one’s happiness because it is the combination or balance of all these things that leads to our overall well-being. No one would get to the end of their life happy and look back saying that exclusively eating a rigid healthy diet was the sole reason they were happy. Like a Rubik’s Cube, it takes some time and ingenuity to align our lives in just the right way, figuring out all the components that mesh well together to bring us a state of contentment. The challenge for all of us is how we learn to invest in all of these aspects over time.

The Rubik’s Cube serves as an apt model for envisioning how we can align all the variables that contribute to our equation of the good life.

One of the reasons younger people tend to be more anxious, depressed, lonely, and less happy than older adults (symptoms exacerbated by the recent pandemic) is that it takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and money to figure these things out, grow, and mature. As the authors of a recent book on the longest study of happiness (which I highly recommend), The Good Life by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz note, adolescence is the prime time of life when we are all trying to answer some major life-altering questions: 

• Who am I? 

• Am I capable of doing what I want with my life? 

• Am I on the right path?

• What do I stand for?

• Will I ever find the right person to love? Will anyone love me?

This moment of life is incredibly stressful for most of us because we are contemplating many of the questions that pertain to this equation of the good life and attempting to set ourselves up for success. And even many adults late in life still struggle to figure out this Rubik’s Cube puzzle of life satisfaction. But we should rest assured that nothing is written in stone and we can always begin anew as the opening quote from the authors of The Good Life reminds us.

Many of us tend to think in simple ways about how we can obtain happiness. We might say to ourselves “If I could only get myself to exercise, eat right, or get enough sleep, THEN I would be content.” But it is more complex than that. We must cultivate multiple avenues of well-being at once similar to an investment portfolio. The good news is all of these things are proven strategies for constructing a more optimal life. Again, the challenge is figuring out how to improve all these various areas simultaneously.

Our society and culture do a good job of providing us with endless choices to buy goods and services and this makes it seem that all we need to be happy is to acquire enough money to buy anything we want. But rarely do we understand that the things that truly matter in life cannot be easily purchased. Sure, we can buy healthy food and give away money to a worthy cause to make us feel better and that’s good, but most things that contribute to our well-being require considerable time and effort that only we can do for ourselves. For instance, a dating app might be able to match us up more effectively and conveniently with another partner nowadays. Still, it’s what we bring to the table to pursue those relationships that will ultimately sustain them. One needs prerequisite interests, hobbies, achievements, stories, and life experiences to be found interesting by another human being if long-term committed relationships are what you seek.

We can also think of all these variables in the “equation of the good life” like a puzzle. First, we work to construct the edges of the puzzle, which might be analogous to the core features of well-being that every doctor prescribes—substantive exercise, diet, and sleep. The edges are both easier to define and serve as a firm structure to support the rest of the larger picture. What gets filled into the middle of the puzzle is everything else—our relationships, our identities, our community involvement, donating to worthy causes, gaining a sense of autonomy, sufficient work, a healthy sex life, having a creative or intellectual pursuit, laughing often, and travel and adventure.

How Does Travel and Adventure Factor into the Equation of the Good Life?

Ranking each of these seven factors I’ve mentioned in this “theory of life satisfaction” and arguing which is more important than another is difficult, if not impossible. But the order of the equation doesn’t matter so much as spending time cultivating each of them. They all matter but may vary depending on our individual preferences and aptitudes. Plus, there are plenty of other things that also contribute toward our well-being that could also be added to this equation of the good life such as the responsible use of psychoactive drugs (a much-needed change occurring in the culture with innovative psychedelic research going on at Johns Hopkins), selfless acts of altruism such as philanthropy or volunteering one’s time and talents for charitable events, or pursuing a worthwhile and stimulating career path.

However, I believe travel and adventure are unique in this equation of the good life and are still often downplayed a lot in our society and culture as not being particularly meaningful or having much benefit to individuals or society beyond the economics of tourism, for instance. We tend to think of travel and adventure simply as good fun and something well-off people enjoy on occasion—everyone needs a vacation to relax and recharge. But I think the meaning of travel and adventure runs much deeper and is far more significant to our well-being than many of us may realize—the crux of Those Who Wander has been dedicated to laying out these arguments, after all.

What is most powerful about traveling and adventure is that it has the potential to enhance all six of the other variables in the good life equation. As I argued in a previous post, travel and adventure can increase our physical and psychological well-being, enable us to cope with life's suffering and strife and confront and overcome fears and anxiety. A major insight I had while backpacking the Appalachian Trail was when I noted that I rarely felt any anxieties or concerns about our larger world during the four months spent outdoors, despite being prone to it and consumed by the “state of the world” before that adventure. 

Additionally, travel and adventure can connect us to other peoples, cultures, and landscapes in unimaginable ways, setting us off on life trajectories that we never dreamed of walking down. Walking a long-distance trail opened my mind to what it meant to live a more deliberate and autonomous lifestyle and it granted me far more insight into humanity and the nature of human well-being than any other experience of my life thus far.

I am still fine-tuning my so-called “theory of life satisfaction” so for anyone out there with more variables to drop into the “equation of the good life,” send them my way!

Thanks for being a fellow traveler with me through this read. Please consider subscribing, sharing, and supporting this project—much more to follow.

Cheers!

-JSB