101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think

This essay urges the reader to consider the reality of daily life rather than ideas of titles or dreams. Wiest urges the reader to think about what they feel on a daily basis, how they want to be remembered or described, and what their dreams and pain can tell them about what they want.

In this essay, Wiest lists 10 things emotionally healthy people do: They listen to their pain, they observe their thoughts and emotions, they reflect, they interrogate their first impressions, they are flexible, and they can find value in any experience. 

This essay, rather than offering a way to measure a life, argues that “measuring a good life” is not the way to have a good life. Wiest reflects on the Western culture of wanting “more” at any cost and asks the reader to “measure” a good life in far more abstract ways: not whether one has reached a goal, but whether one has changed and grown, chosen and failed, and laughed on the way to the goal. A good life is constituted by whether one is liberated enough to close one door before the next one opens.