We are called Human Being, the key essence is the “being”! It is our nature to just be, “be” can be many things or nothing. We can be happy or “just be” with the here and now.
In the era of 21st century, the word “Well-being” becomes a big buzz word when it relates to our level of happiness or mental health. How does it suddenly come to the lamplight? Let’s deep dive into the concept of well-being and the relationship with Human Being.
Well-being can be understood as how we feel and how we function, both on a personal and a social level, and how we evaluate lives as a whole. (Ref. New Economics Foundations)
The way how we feel, the emotions of happiness or anxiety are largely related to our experiences in life and how we function interpersonally and socially. The way how we function reflecting our competence and connectedness in the community with our thinkings and actions. The choices of action make up our experiences, then we evaluate the experiences and that sum up our life as a whole. And how do we rate life? We usually comparing current life with the best possible one in mind.
“Well-being” is not the same as just happiness. it covers with a much broader concept than the moment-to-moment happiness, but it also reflects on how satisfied we are with our lives and the sense of purpose in life. Therefore, well-being composes of how we function, feel, evaluate the satisfaction and purpose of life.
“Well-being” becomes the unit of the evaluation. It is the unit that sums up on how we feel, do we feel comfortable to function both physically and mentally in healthy condition to live happily. In short, well-being can be described as a state of mind being comfortable, healthy, and happy!
In this understanding, what is the well-being that we always talk about it in the context of 21st century? In the recent ten years, we gain high awareness on thriving to achieve a balanced life, from the notion of “work-life balance” to well-being to a deeper sense of satisfaction and purpose of life. This awareness shifts from materialized base focus to an inner purposeful meaning, this is a big leap in humanity consciousness.
All we need to do is to learn achieving Well-being, the metric lies on the sense of balance. Balance plays a key role on the well-being concept. When we attain moment-to-moment inner balance and calmness, it is equally the same feeling as achieving the momentarily happiness.
To achieve the inner balance, it requires us to practice! There is no quick fix but to learn from the Buddhists, 2,500 years ago, the practice of meditation or yogi practice to calm the mind. The ancient practices had been transformed into all kinds of mindfulness practices nowadays. What is important is that no matter what types of linage practices, all of them point to the core issue – the mind, and to still the mind as a target before any spiritual attainment. It is also largely related to the level of consciousness to perceive reality to bring the mind practice into daily life. Well-being is not just a “feel-good” concept; but It is a lifelong real life practice. We are the Human Beings, to become the Well-Being itself.