Are you living a good life? Take this quiz to find out.

Many of us want to live a “good life.”

But what a good life looks like and how to create it have been existential questions pondered for millennia by philosophers, some of whom have offered abstract or difficult-to-obtain perspectives on how to achieve it.

In the past four decades, however, psychologists have taken a more pragmatic approach by examining what people think or actually pursue as a life worth living.

In their research, psychologists have uncovered three dimensions that people gravitate toward:

• A happy life, one created by pursuing comfort, satisfaction and more joy than sadness.
• A meaningful life, one grounded by purpose, connection and making the world better.
• And a psychologically rich life, marked by novel experiences, perspective-shifting insights and complexity.

Each dimension offers a different — though not mutually exclusive — path to a good life.

A happy life might end with “It was fun!” A meaningful one might evoke “I made a difference!” And a psychologically rich life might be summed up with “What a journey!”

This quiz will help you reflect on the life you’re leading — and what you want out of it. It will also offer evidence-backed advice on how to head further down the path(s) you desire. It is a shortened version of the Good Life Scale created by psychologists Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Chicago and Erin Westgate of the University of Florida to measure these three dimensions. Our quiz was developed with their help.

What paths are you currently taking in your life’s journey?

Happy

Are you living a good life? Take this quiz to find out.

Sad*

Fulfilling

Dramatic

Meaningful

Meaningless*

Enjoyable

Purposeful

Uneventful*

Psychologically rich

Comfortable

Interesting

If I had to choose, my ideal life would be …

• happy — satisfying, comfortable and pleasant.
• meaningful — marked by contributions to society.
• psychologically rich — full of perspective-changing experiences.

Please think about what kind of life you would ideally like to have.

Now, imagine there are three types of a good life.

• A happy life is the life that is stable, comfortable, safe and pleasant.
• A meaningful life is the life devoted to a societal cause which brings a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
• A psychologically rich life is the life that is eventful, interesting, varied and full of surprises.

If you can pick just one of the three lives, which one would you choose?

• 1 = A happy life
• 2 = A meaningful life
• 3 = A psychologically rich life

Results

It can be daunting to reflect on something that seems big, all-encompassing and existential. But such self-reflection can help you better understand yourself, where you are and what you most value, which may provide a road map for where you want your life to go.

The good news is that there are many ways toward your own good life. Take it one step at a time, and focus on the path you currently value the most.

Here’s some advice on how to take that next step toward your ideal life.

The three pathways to a good life aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. But when asked to choose just one, you selected

Happiness

Your choice, by far the most popular one, was also preferred by 62.2 percent of Americans in a 2020 study with participants from nine countries — the United States, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Angola — conducted by Oishi and Westgate. South Korea had the highest percentage of respondents wanting a happy life, at almost 70 percent. Germany, Norway and Portugal had the lowest percentage, each with around 50 percent.

To live a happier life, don’t look toward the big, intense moments of joy. The birth of your child, a big work promotion, winning the lottery can all feel amazing in the moment but the emotions fade surprisingly quickly.

Research shows that the frequency of positive experiences is more important than their intensity for long-term happiness, Oishi said. So try to focus on finding more frequent joy snacks:

• Do things with others. People report being happier doing almost anything with others than alone, across a wide swath of activities, including the mundane — getting gas, doing homework, commuting, grocery shopping — and ones that may not seem inherently social, such as reading, doing car repairs or managing finances.
• Savor what you already enjoy. Mindfully pay attention to the sensations, emotions and overall experience you’re having when you are enjoying something. Research shows that savoring can accentuate our positive experiences. This can take practice, but it can allow you to get the most out of each joy snack.
• Tune in to gratitude, which has been found to improve mental health and decrease loneliness and was one of the biggest boosts to happiness in one recent study. Writing a gratitude list boosts well-being, but writing a more detailed gratitude letter — when directed to specific people — is even better for promoting more positive moods.

The three pathways to a good life aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. But when asked to choose just one, you selected

Psychological richness

You are part of a small — but substantial — group of people who preferred the psychologically rich life, including 13.2 percent of Americans, according to a 2020 study with participants from nine countries — the United States, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Angola — conducted by Oishi and Westgate. Germans were most likely to endorse seeking a life of psychological richness at around 17 percent, while Singaporeans were least likely to prefer this path, at less than 7 percent.

Here’s how to cultivate more psychological richness in your everyday life:

• Embrace more playfulness, curiosity and spontaneity. This can be something as simple as taking a different route to work or home and noticing the newness around you. “Find something new from the familiar, and change your routines a little bit here and there,” Oishi said. “Have a certain time that you can be spontaneous every day.”
• Try a new activity. There is discomfort in not being good at something, but pushing past your comfort zone is a way to grow into the new and (previously) unknown. “Start by reaching for richer experiences and becoming a little bit more comfortable with tolerating negative feelings, tolerating discomfort,” Westgate said.
• Journal and reflect on your experiences. Psychological richness is more akin to career highlights, but even the most profound memories can fade with time. Writing them down and even sharing them with others can help you hold onto your life-changing experiences.

The three pathways to a good life aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. But when asked to choose just one, you selected

Meaning

The second most popular choice, a meaningful life was preferred by 24.7 percent of Americans in a 2020 study with participants from nine countries — the United States, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Angola — conducted by Oishi and Westgate. Singaporeans ranked this choice the highest, with about 39 percent, while Japanese and South Koreans ranked it the lowest with around 15 to 19 percent.

There are no real shortcuts to changing the world beside spending time doing the hard work, Oishi said.

But here are some ways to make your life feel more meaningful:

• Volunteer and help others. Studies show that doing good is good for us. Do your research on how best to give according to your values, but don’t keep searching for the perfect opportunity. Instead of only looking at large charities, think local and donate to or volunteer with organizations in your community; it will also help you see your impact up close and more tangibly.
• Try to live more authentically. Pay attention to moments that feel most natural, and pursue choices that best fit you and your values in the different domains of your life, such as work, relationships and recreation. Research shows that authenticity helps to both protect psychological health and boost meaning in life.
• Seek out moments of awe, which research shows can increase meaning in life. Turn to nature, at scales both immense and small. Look for inspiration — in art, music or people performing acts of kindness or courage like those profiled by our friends at The Optimist.

Share your advice

We would love to get your insights about what has worked for you. Your advice may be used, with your consent, in a follow-up story next year. We will not publish any part of your response without following up, so please include your contact information.

About this story

Illustrations, design and art direction by Chelsea Conrad. Design and development by Carson TerBush. Editing by Christine Ashack and Anjuman Ali. Copy editing by Dorine Bethea.

Methodology

The Washington Post’s Good Life quiz was adapted, with permission, from the original “15-item Good Life Scale” published by Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Chicago and Erin Westgate of the University of Florida in a 2022 study.

Measurements were made on a 7-point Likert scale and averaged from responses corresponding to each dimension. A happy life was measured by the responses to “happy,” “enjoyable,” “comfortable” and “sad”(reversed). A meaningful life was measured by “meaningful,” “fulfilling,” “purposeful” and “meaningless”(reversed). A psychologically rich life was measured by “interesting,” “dramatic,” “psychologically rich” and “uneventful”(reversed).

Three questions were removed from The Post’s quiz with consultation from Oishi for brevity while maintaining validity: “Unstable” (reversed) for a happy life, “disorganized”(reversed) for a meaningful life and “monotonous”(reversed) for a psychologically rich life.

Comparison data is drawn from an unpublished dataset by Oishi and others of 1,528 U.S. participants from 100 cities taking the Good Life Scale on the online platform Prolific and shared with The Post. The demographics of the dataset were: Respondents were an average of 40 years old, ranging from 18 to 83 years of age; 48.2 percent were male, 50 percent were female; 77 percent were White, 8.6 percent were Black, 5 percent were Asian, 4.3 percent were Hispanic and 4.4 percent were multiracial; 39 percent of respondents had a college degree, 14 percent had a Master’s degree, 4 percent had a JD, MD or PhD, 13 percent had a high school education, 0.5 percent had less than a high school diploma, and 30 percent had some college.

The path with the furthest progress was selected as the dimension with the highest mean and, if there was a tie for mean, the highest percentile compared to the dataset was chosen. Percentile was calculated based off distribution of the comparison data.

Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email [email protected] and we may answer it in a future column.