Whatever your characters do or say will be born out of who they are, so you need to set out
to get to know each one as well as possible. One way to do this is to look within your own heart, at the different facets of your personality. You may find a con man, an orphan, a nurse, a king, a hooker, a preacher, a loser, a child, a crone. Go into each of these people and try to capture how each one
feels, thinks, talks, survives.

The Good Life: Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz

1: What Makes a Good Life?

“Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody. The good life is joyful... and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements, setbacks, leaps forward, and terrible falls. And of course, the good life always ends in death.

A cheery sales pitch, we know. But let’s not mince words. Life, even when it’s good, is not easy. There is simply no way to make life perfect, and if there were, then it wouldn’t be good.

Why? Because a rich life—a good life—is forged from precisely the things that make it hard.

So where do we start? How can we come closer to seeing the reality of our own social universe?

It’s good to start simple. First, ask: Who is in my life?

It’s a question that most of us, amazingly, never bother to ask ourselves. Even making a basic list of the ten people who populate the center of your social universe can be illuminating. Try it below; you might be surprised at who comes to mind and who doesn’t.

Emotional Closeness and Confiding

Who knows everything (or most things) about you?

Who can you call on when you’re feeling low and be honest with them about how you’re feeling?

Who can you ask for advice (and trust what they say)?

Identity Affirmation and Shared Experience

Is there someone in your life who has shared many experiences with you and who helps strengthen your sense of who you are and where you’ve come from?

So tomorrow when you get up and go to work, consider a few questions:

• Who are the people I most enjoy and value at work, and what is it about them that is valuable? Am I appreciating them?

• Who is different from me in some way (who thinks differently, comes from a different background, has different expertise), and what can I learn from that person?

• If I’m having a conflict with another worker, what can I do to alleviate it? Would the W.I.S.E.R. model be useful?

• What kinds of connections am I missing at work that I might want more of? Could I imagine a way to make these connections more likely, or richer?

• Do I really know my workmates? Is there someone I’d like to know better? How can I reach out to them? You might even pick that person with whom you seem to have the least in common, and make a point to be curious and ask about something that they’ve displayed, like pictures of family or pets or a T-shirt they wear at work.