I'm dinking around with ideas about life satisfaction. I believe it comes down to 4 categories as seen in the Venn diagram above. We can be satisfied in life if our "Personal" circle is experiencing acceptance, meaning, and growth in any of the other 3 areas. By itself, it does nothing but cause more angst, and without it we feel directionless, meaningless, and depressed. To have the most satisfying life, the entire personal circle will be fulfilled, but a decent life will have at least one fulfilling overlap.
The big key, then, is the yellow circle. Everything outside the yellow circle is non-personal external forces. For work, it is how much money you make, who you work for, what your project is, the meetings you attend, etc, etc. Even if all those things were terrible overall, if the personal space within it is finding meaning and acceptance (the social aspect), you will be happy. Similarly, if the yellow space is null and void, it won't matter how much money you make, what your title is, or what you're working on. Notably, they often go hand in hand. If everything is going crappy, you'll generally not find meaning and acceptance, but honestly it is quite often a personal choice and/or there are things you can personally do to improve it. The yellow space is almost entirely what you make out of life.
The yellow is deeply personal in the center where it does not overlap with the other three circles. It is how you feel about yourself, who you are, how well you know yourself, and whether or not you like and accept yourself. Notably, this is surrounded by all those same questions by the external groups of Home, Community, and Work. If everyone hates you and does not accept you in all three categories, then you are surrounded with no escape and your self will likely die. If one area is void or causes pain and suffering, however, you have two others that you could retreat to for meaning and enjoyment in life. If Home is awful, people often retreat to Work or Community. This does not guarantee happiness, of course, if they rush right outside the yellow circle entirely. Everything requires introspection, growth, meaning, and acceptance in order to breed happiness. And if Home is bad, it usually indicates a poor-working central personal area which means you're likely suffering in all areas. The root cause (or effect?) of clinical depression is quite likely a failure to glow in all three areas simultaneously.
As social creatures, we ultimately need other people. We literally go insane if isolated for extended periods of time and we start talking to volleyballs with hand prints on them. Thus, the personal space is all the social interactions with the various groups (including self in the middle). We must like and enjoy ourselves as much as we believe others like and enjoy us. I say believe, because it is more important that we believe others like and enjoy us than it being an actual fact. People can love us until the cows come home, but if we do not perceive it or believe it (usually a sign of depression), we will wither and it will affect our inner personal self. Similarly, if we believe everyone loves us when they really don't, we will happily and cheerily continue on with life without skipping a beat. Ignorance is bliss! Such people may find that their bubbles are not particularly successful, but they'll be happy despite it.
To find meaning and acceptance in the social areas, it is generally worthwhile to understand people. Understanding how people think and operate can change how we perceive ourselves in their eyes immensely. Comprehending that people are not devoting their every thought to us, and that they are likely worried about themselves, is a great way to prevent misinterpretation of their actions (or lack thereof). It also enables us to realize just how we can get in their good graces. The best way to make someone like and accept us is to make it quite open and obvious that we like and accept them. It is difficult to dislike someone who likes you unless you have some particularly bad habits. Most of us, however, are willing to overlook the habits of other people. Recognizing that we all have bad habits and the fact that we generally don't hold people in super low regard just because they have them, can help us accept our own habits and recognize that others are likely not holding them against us either. In such a way, we can flourish in acceptance of self and believe in the acceptance of others.
Another great way we can perceive acceptance from and derive meaning toward others is to be useful to them. We can do work or show creativity in ways that garner their respect or admiration. Determine what will float their boats or benefit them. Give them a hand in appropriate ways that will enable them to soar. Acknowledge their work, their deeds, their words, their creativity, and ask in which ways we might be beneficial to them. Do things with them we know they love. Focus on others and we will find meaning in their lives if we are not rejected by them. If we are rejected, we can simply realize that not everyone will like all flavors of people. We don't like all things any more than they do. So we hang out with the people who do value us and our efforts when we pursue their happiness. This is the age-old concept of how giving is better than receiving. It is the very concept that by forgetting our own lives and focusing on others, we will find our own life. If we focus only on our own lives, we never get the social aspects to flourish and we feel trapped and useless. We must be meaningful to people or we have no meaning at all.
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