Is the good life about achieving something?  Does the good life come when I’ve achieved a certain level of income?  Does the good life come when I’ve achieved a certain level of popularity?  Or maybe the good life comes when I attain a certain amount of comfort in my life?  Or maybe the good life is when I’ve been able to reach an enlightened state of self-actualization and self-mastery? 

What constitutes the good life?  Everyone seems to want it.  But I’m not sure that many of us know how to get it.  Most people tend to think of the good life as something that you achieve or something that you get to.  The problem with this approach is that it will necessarily always fall short.  Firstly, experience tells us that we are not naturally as disciplined as we need to be to attain all that we would hope for.  And secondly, our thirst for achievement is never quenched.  We might say that we’ll be satisfied with place to stay, food to eat, clothes to wear, some good family and friends, and at little pain and drama as possible, but inevitably there remains this “one last thing” that we need to get in order to finally feel like we’ve made it.  Just a little more money, or a little more power, a little more notoriety, a little nicer house, or a better girlfriend.  We say, just that little more and I will be content.  But we know this to be false.  Experience tells us that by and large we have not been satisfied.  We know that the last car we bought did not give us lasting satisfaction, so what makes us think that the next shiny new car will be any different? 

Thus far, I’ve mentioned only primarily the material.  For some, they recognize clearly that the material can never fully satisfy and so the good life does not consist in the material.  And this, in my opinion, is a right judgment.  However, often the counter approach is self-mastery or self-actualization.  If I can just gain enough control over my passions and thinking and achieve an “enlightened” state, only then will I have the good life.  However, this thinking is also fraught with trouble, as what human being ever experienced complete self-mastery or self-actualization?  If our idea of the good life is based solely on reaching this spiritual nirvana of self-mastery or self-actualization, then we shall never have the good life, because we will always be discontent in our failure to achieve perfection.

So then if it’s not about the material or spiritual achievement, then what could the good life be about?  To answer the question, I must first say that there is an element of truth to the “achievement” approach.  The very idea of achievement implies that there is a “good” to be attained.  If there were no good to be attained, then there would be no point in trying to achieve anything.  So the fact that there is a good to be attained is important to understanding what the good life is.  Most people’s definition of good tends toward the direction of perfection, both materially and spiritually.  Materially in the sense that I have everything thing I need to have perfect happiness, pleasure, and comfort.  Spiritually in the sense that I am in perfect control of all my thoughts and actions and that I always act in accordance with what I think to be the right way to act or respond.  Attaining perfection is by and large what people are after, religious and non-religious.  Perfection is a good thing, and so we believe that the good life is about attaining those things.  The critical problem that this approach faces, which I mentioned briefly earlier is our inability to attain this.  And perhaps even more damning of this approach is the idea that even if it were possible to attain perfection, it still wouldn’t be satisfying.  And what good is a good life that’s not satisfying? 

The breakthrough occurs when one recognizes that the good life is not about achieving, but about receiving.  Good is rightly connected to perfection.  You cannot separate the good from perfection.  So we need someone outside of us to bridge the gap between us and perfection, lest we be completely separated from the good by our inability to attain perfection.  This someone outside of us is Jesus the Christ.  God sent his son Jesus to do what we could not do, namely achieve complete self-mastery and perfection.  And God in his grace allows us to receive the perfection (aka righteousness) by belief and trust in Him.   

But not only is our inability to attain perfection addressed, but our insatiability is also addressed in Jesus the Christ.  The reason is this: perfection by our own means can never fully satisfy, because we are not what is greatest and grand in the universe.  Though the good is inextricable from perfection, the good does not consist solely of perfection.  There is a quality or attribute of perfection that is needed in order to truly satisfy, namely divinity.  Divine perfection, which can only be found in God through Christ, is that which can truly satisfy.  We receive the righteousness and perfection that make up part of the good life, but moreover we receive the ability to glory in God as the author of perfection.  God is greatest and grandest in the universe, and our own perfection can never replace that.  Thus the good life cannot be attained, but must be received, for to attain is to glory in self, but to receive is to glory in the giver.  And what we receive is not just power and perfection, but a personal relationship with God, who is the ultimate good.  Self-mastery is ultimately self-defeating, because the best it could possibly do is achieve a humanly perfection, while there yet exists a divine perfection which remains unattainable.  Though we cannot become like God in the sense of possessing his exact divine perfection, we can become like God in the sense of rejoicing in all his perfect goodness.  And it is in this relationship of love and rejoicing in our Creator that we receive the good life.