What is the Good Life?

When I say ‘Brad Pitt’, what do you think?

Them eyes? Those washboard abs? That gaggle of children following in his wake?

Wrong.

Well, right, but there just might be more to him than his ungodly (or godly?) good looks.

Allow me to explain.

I read this quote from him in an old Rolling Stones interview as I was thinking about this coming year and how to define “the good life.” It was, dare-I-say, borderline profound.

Disclaimer: The following excerpt offers no solutions, no simple answers, and no magic pills to happiness. But is certainly some tasty food for thought.

Brad Pitt: Man, I know all these things are supposed to seem important to us – the car, the condo, our versions of success – but if that’s the case, why is the general feeling out there reflecting more impotence and isolation and desperation and loneliness? If you ask me, I say ‘Toss all this, we gotta find something else.’ Because all I know is at this point in time, we are heading for a dead end, a numbing of the soul, a complete atrophy of the spiritual being. And I don’t want that.

Rolling Stone: So if we’re heading toward this kind of existential dead-end in society, what do you think should happen?

Brad Pitt: Hey, man, I don’t have those answers yet. The emphasis now is on success and personal gain. [Smiles.] I’m sitting in it, and I’m telling you, that’s not it. Whether you want to listen to me or not – and I say to the reader – that’s not it. I’m the guy who’s got everything. I know. But I’m telling you, once you get everything, then you’re just left with yourself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it doesn’t help you sleep any better, and you don’t wake up any better because of it. Now, no one’s going to want to hear that. I understand it. I’m sorry I’m the guy who’s got to say it. But I’m telling you, its the truth.

This sentiment reminds me of another equally as wealthy and prosperous man’s insight on the same subject. This is what King Solomon (10th century B.C.) had to say on “the good life.”

“Oh, I did great things: built houses, planted vineyards, designed gardens and parks, and planted a variety of fruit trees in them, made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees. I bought slaves, male and female, who had children, giving me even more slaves; then I acquired large herds and flocks, larger than any before me in Jerusalem. I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and – most exquisite of all pleasures – voluptuous maidens for my bed. Oh, how I prospered! Everything I wanted I took – I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task – my reward to myself for a hard day’s work! Then I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.”

So what do we possibly pull from this?

In a world where we can all be described as “looking for more,” I see this as a challenge that every one of us should face: to define “the good life” for ourselves. Otherwise how will we know what we are really looking for or when we have found it?

I would argue that it’s critical that we attempt to define what kind of life we think is worth living, or what elements compose a “good life” because our motives, goals, and successes are just waiting to align with our definition.

Until we do this, we may realize we are simply spitting into the wind.

And I don’t know about you, but if there’s one thing I don’t think of when I think of “the good life,” it’s my own spit on my face.