Reading These Four Books Will Help You Better Understand How to Live

Understanding the Complexity of Life

How to live? This is an ancient question However, in the 21st century, it has become more complex On one hand, we have more choices: longer years of education, more career paths, richer sources of information, and more life scripts to imitate On the other hand, people more frequently feel lost, exhausted, and anxious Perhaps this is because our understanding of life is too narrow For a long time, people have tended to equate a life worth living with happiness, success, and stability But a life worth living is not a single metric; it is a complex structure It includes at least four dimensions: meaning, richness, authenticity, and the future Why do I live? What kind of life have I experienced? Have I become myself? How do I face the world that has not yet arrived? These four questions form the basic framework for understanding "how to live" We recommend the following four books to you "Why We Live" (《我们为什么而活》)

The author is Viktor E. Frankl (1905—1997), an Austrian psychologist, medical doctor, and founder of logotherapy, who is recognized as a representative of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, following Freud and Adler Many people know Frankl through his book "Man's Search for Meaning" This book, "Why We Live," can be seen as an important collection of essays for understanding Frankl's thoughts Twenty years ago, during his speech at the 1975 International PEN Congress, Frankl discussed the prevalent sense of meaninglessness of the era Twenty years later, as times have developed, Frankl's ideas have not become outdated; instead, they have become increasingly vital The more volatile, unstable, complex, and ambiguous the era is, the more people need meaning In Frankl's view, humans do not solely pursue pleasure or power There is a deeper psychological drive within people: the will to meaning Suffering does not necessarily destroy a person What truly destroys a person is often the loss of meaning in their suffering Why can a person endure unhappiness? It is not because they are insensitive or naturally strong, but because they know why they are enduring it For Frankl, meaning typically comes from three directions: accomplishing something worthwhile through creation or work; forming deep connections with others, the world, and values through love; and choosing a dignified attitude when facing unavoidable suffering Reading Frankl should not merely be seen as reading narratives of suffering The question he genuinely cares about is not how people endure suffering, but why people live Suffering simply pushes this question to its sharpest point "Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life" (《经历：好奇、探索和体验人生》)

The author, Shigehiro Oishi, is a Japanese-American psychologist, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences He has long studied happiness, meaning, culture, and personality, making him a noteworthy scholar in contemporary positive psychology Are happiness and meaning the only things in a life worth living? Shigehiro Oishi proposes a third dimension: psychological richness What is psychological richness? Simply put, it means having enough diverse, interesting, unusual, and perspective-changing experiences in one's life Life needs not only comfort and correctness but also expansion Those experiences that take you out of your familiar environment, encounters that make you reinterpret yourself, and the reading, traveling, relationships, failures, relocations, creations, and adventures that alter your original worldview do not always bring happiness or immediately seem meaningful, but they add depth to life Oishi's own experience serves as an example He came from a family of farmers in rural Japan; his father never left his birthplace, living a stable, traditional, and self-consistent life As the eldest son, Oishi left his hometown early on, frequently moving from Tokyo to the United States and switching academic institutions What he pursues is not merely to be happier or more meaningful, but a state of life that continuously expands boundaries and experiences the unknown This book reminds us not to prematurely compress life into a single script "Artist of Life" (《生活的艺术家》)

Bruce Lee did not use the conceptual system of modern psychology, but his understanding of self, action, expression, the body, methods, and authenticity often precisely hit the key issues of modern psychology Many of Lee's observations in the book are practically applications of self-determination theory, personal construct psychology, emotion-in-context theories, and implementation intentions Lee was not a psychologist, but without a rich structure of modern psychological knowledge, he faintly yet accurately captured the crux of the matter What is an artist of life? It is not an elegant lifestyle, nor aesthetic taste, and certainly not lifestyle consumption An artist of life refers to an individual's growth process: a person who uses their independent judgment to become a physically, psychologically, and spiritually complete human being How to live requires more than just finding meaning or adding experiences. It also requires a person to continuously become themselves The life problems many people face do not stem from a lack of methods, but from having too many methods; not from a lack of goals, but from having goals given by others; not from lacking a self, but from shaping too many false self-images Bruce Lee had a critical insight: let people create methods, rather than letting methods create people Lee emphasized expressing oneself directly The uniqueness of Kung Fu lies in directly expressing one's emotions with minimum movement and force The closer one gets to the true essence of Kung Fu, the more refined the expression becomes "Tomorrowmind" (《我们终将穿越风暴》)

In recent years, a research trend focusing more on the future has emerged in psychological science, and this book is a representative work In the book, Seligman proposes the PRISM model, explaining five key psychological strengths needed to face the future: Prospection, Resilience, Innovation, Social Support, and Meaning This book will inspire knowledge workers to cope with future uncertainties more effectively You cannot demand that the world remain unchanged You can only train your mental capacity to face changes The book's first two chapters on situational alienation happen to coincide with Yang's theory of "three types of alienation" Time barrier: we often feel there is not enough time The book mentions that spending even just 40 seconds comforting someone else can bring a sense of time abundance Space barrier: remote work weakens physical connections Compared to asynchronous information, synchronous communication is more likely to bring positive resonance The "us/them" barrier: humans instinctively distinguish between insiders and outsiders Through personalization, recategorization, empowerment, and perspective-taking, "them" can be more quickly transformed into "us" How to live is not a self-optimization of an isolated individual in a vacuum It is related to time, space, relationships, and the future A truly worthwhile life is not one without storms. Rather, it is one where, amid the storms, a person can still prospect the future, maintain resilience, create new paths, connect with others, and rediscover meaning Reading Suggestions These four books help us re-understand how to live from the four dimensions of meaning, richness, authenticity, and the future If you are at a low point in your life or feel a strong sense of meaninglessness towards life, it is recommended to read Frankl's "Why We Live" first It will remind you that meaning is not just a slogan, but an extremely critical force in human mental health

If you are tired of traditional happiness and success studies, it is recommended to read Shigehiro Oishi's "Life in Three Dimensions" It will help you understand that life is not just about being happy or correct, but also requires sufficiently diverse, complex, and perspective-altering experiences If you want to re-understand your true self, read Bruce Lee's "Artist of Life" This book is not just a martial artist's philosophical notes, but also a record of a doer on how to become oneself If you care about how to face future uncertainties, read "Tomorrowmind" It provides a future-oriented framework of psychological capabilities, particularly suitable for knowledge workers and those experiencing change