One of my friends is Lane. He and I met on the very first day of college. We were on an elevator together and were both concerned that it was about to collapse on us. That near-death experience started a long friendship.
Lane went on to be psychologist. Many times, when we are together, I get concerned that he may be analyzing me and his prognosis may not be great.
He is a great friend who follows my writings. He recently sent me an article about wellbeing, suggesting it as an article idea. It was published in “Scientific American”.
The article talks about how to achieve wellbeing. It distinguishes traits of people who are considered to have wellbeing.
In other words, there are five different personality traits that point to a person having wellbeing. The article goes on to identify that if you have most of these traits, you probably have overall wellbeing in life.
1. Enthusiasm. People with enthusiasm are friendly, sociable, emotionally expressive and tend to have a lot of fun in life. It is a good prediction for life satisfaction, positive emotions, less negative emotions, and environmental mastery.
2. Low Withdrawal. People who score high on withdrawal are easily discouraged and overwhelmed. Compare that to people who are actively involved in life. Again, they have greater life satisfaction, positive emotions, and less negative emotions. By having lower levels of withdrawal symptoms, those people have greater autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relationships, self-acceptance, meaning and purpose, good relationships and achievements.
3. Industrious. People who are industrious are achievement oriented, self-disciplined, efficient, purposeful, and competent. Industriousness has a strong correlation with the term “grit” – passion and perseverance for long term goals.
4. Compassion. People who are compassionate feel and care about others’ emotions and wellbeing. Compassion is correlated with more positive emotions, more environmental mastery, social growth, positive relationships, self-acceptance, meaning and purpose, engagement and achievement.
5. Intellectual curiosity. People who score high on intellectual curiosity are open to new ideas, enjoy thinking deeply and complexly, and tend to reflect a lot on their experiences.
The article went on to point out that there are two more traits that predict wellbeing. The first is assertiveness. People who score high on assertiveness are socially more active, motivated to obtain social status and leadership positions, and tend to be provocative.
The second trait is creative openness. People who score high in creative openness need a creative outlet, and appreciate beauty, daydreaming, imagination, fantasy and feelings.
Why am I sharing this with you? Really, many of these items are things that we can do on our own. I know that I can be more enthusiastic about my day, I know I can become more involved, I know sometimes I just need to get up and do something (industrious). I feel like a have a lot of compassion for life, and I do feel like I have intellectual curiosity.
I feel like I have the means to control all of those factors if I just try.
Again, all of these factors are things that you can control to give you greater wellbeing, to give you greater satisfaction with your life.
One of the battles that I have with some of my older clients is that they have lost a lot of their sense of wellbeing. Somehow, they think that because they are retired, or because they have some type of chronic illness, life has little meaning.
We can battle through these things together. We can still have wellbeing.
I hope that Lane did not send me this article because he thought I lacked wellbeing. While the article encouraged me, it also reaffirmed some of the things that I know are important to me and that I need to work on.
This is wishing all of you a sense of wellbeing.
Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.