I have always been mesmerised by watching small children at play. They are completely engaged in the moment without any care as to who might be watching. They never hesitate to show their emotion or their affection, letting it flow unhindered, whether it is a loud belly laugh or a joyful hug. These bundles of curiosity are like little sponges, soaking up everything that is presented to them. By definition, they are flourishing. Like a flower that needs air, water, and nutrients in the right proportions to blossom, children only need to love, learn and play.
The older I have gotten, the more I have wondered why flourishing is so much more complex for adults and what we can do to make it simpler.
In this blog, I will focus on the idea that true happiness and fulfilment come from living a life grounded in meaning and engagement, not just external success. I will also share a guide to help you reconnect with what really matters in achieving a flourishing life.
Why Love, Learn, and Play Matter?
I have led a fortunate life, had a successful career, achieved financial stability and have a family who loves me.
Yet I reached a point, not that long ago, where I felt something was missing. From the outside, it might have appeared different.
At the time, I was working in my dream job and had all the accoutrements that went with it, but inside, I knew I was not fully flourishing.
I did not understand that it was this framework of what I now call Loving, Learning, and Playing (LLP) that I had lost sight of. I was not fully engaged with the meaning of life. I realised that I needed to gain perspective on conscious living.
I had to press pause, study and go inside to understand it.
The epidemic of unhappiness
According to Harvard University’s former president Derek Bok, “people are essentially no happier today than they were 50 years ago, despite a doubling or quadrupling of average per capita income”. Around 300 million people worldwide suffer from some form of depression, and around 800,000 commit suicide each year.
Suicide is the second most frequent cause of death for 15-24 year-olds in the developed world. A recent US survey found that only 25% of 18- to 34-year-olds describe themselves as “very happy.”
Material progress has made us physically healthier and granted many of us access to previously unfathomable luxuries. Yet most of us are still unhappy, living on the edges of the Love, Learn and Play (LLP) framework.
Why Are People Unhappy Despite Having Everything?
It might be as simple as a failure to heed the age-old wisdom reiterated by such sages as John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, and John Maynard Keynes, who advised people, a century ago, to “value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful[1].
The Gita[2] teaches the idea of detached work or nishkama karma. Krishna[3] instructs us to do our duty, without worrying about the fruits of our labour and to focus on doing the right thing. He warns us not to get sidetracked, a challenge that is increasingly difficult in today’s digitally connected world.
Knowledge and material wealth are means that can help us towards our end goal of flourishing to our full potential yet one can benefit from that and still not flourish. Conversely, one does not need to be rich or to have optimum environmental conditions to flourish.
Consider Viktor E. Frankl[4]. A Holocaust survivor, Frankl wrote about how he still found ways to flourish in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning in which he describes his experience in the Nazi concentration camps during World War ll. That might seem unfathomable today in a world where we fall apart when we have no access to Wi-Fi, but his conscious choices made the difference.
“An unexamined life is not worth living”, Socrates.
History’s most brilliant thinkers and revered prophets have focused on the search for meaning in life for millennia.
What I learned in my research was that Aristotle, Jesus, Thomas Aquinas, the Buddha, the Prophet Mohammed, the Jewish philosopher Hillel the Elder, Confucius, and the Humanists of the European Enlightenment had no apparent victor.
While all of these ideas are still with us today, in some form or another, they have ebbed away, to give way to new philosophies.
Whether it was because they provided only partial answers or were only applicable to certain segments of the population, stages of life or historical contexts, they lost their appeal as our knowledge of the world has increased.
Still, there is a thread running through all of them, and that is to create meaning of the unknown and to suggest what each of us ought to do to live our best lives.
Lastly, all these approaches emphasize the paramount importance of choice and the mind in the achievement of a fulfilled life.
Beyond Happiness: The Desire To Make Meaning Of Life
All religions, philosophies, and traditions are part of humanity’s effort to make sense of life, to understand how to live a fulfilling life, and to explore the ultimate question of our purpose.
However, in today’s world, this becomes clouded with false narratives that have been ingrained in us and an inversion of means to end that I will discuss more in the next two posts of this series.
Love, Learn, and Play: The Three Keys to Flourishing
Perhaps the key to a flourishing life is simpler than we think and it can work for anyone, no matter their age, environment, or situation.
My studies and life experiences have led me to believe that the answer is in this simple LLP framework – love, learn and play – the very same triple helix that brings joy to children, regardless of their socio-economic status or where they live.
LLP can be manifested in all our daily activities and actions at every stage of our lives but too often it is not for one simple reason. We are living more compulsively than consciously. Flourishing is something we see as outside of ourselves, an elusive destination to reach, instead of understanding it is a choice in how we are living our lives.
The thing we keep missing is that we get to decide whether or not we flourish.
Conclusion : Concious living and Human Flourishing
This blog explores what it truly means to live a flourishing life, especially in a world that often chases external success over inner fulfilment.
I have rediscovered joy through the simple yet powerful framework of Love, Learn, and Play, and so can you.
In doing so, you need to challenge the false narrative that career success and material comfort alone lead to happiness. I advocate for conscious living, making intentional choices that align with our values and deeper purpose.
Drawing from timeless wisdom, spiritual teachings, and psychological insights, I believe that the meaning of life lies not in fleeting pleasure but in human flourishing, which goes beyond happiness and into the realm of purpose, connection, and growth.
References:
[1] https://www.sloww.co/keynes-economic-possibilities/
[2] https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/first-book-yoga
[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krishna-Hindu-deity
[4] https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/
This post is the first in a 3-part series by Akhil Gupta
About the author:
Akhilesh Gupta is the founder of the UEF Foundation and a Fellow of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. He previously served as senior managing director at Blackstone and held leadership roles at Reliance Industries and Hindustan Unilever.
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