Redefining the good life | Hinesight....for Foresight

My always alert friend and colleague, Josh Calder of the Foresight Alliance pointed me towards another relevant values posting: Is a Well-Lived Life Worth Anything from the Harvard Business Review. The author, Umair Haque, ponders the question of what the good life really is. He starts by observing how materials goods consumption and an obsession with economic growth — “slack-jawed consumption” — have not only created problems but lead only to fleeting happiness. In ConsumerShift terms, he is talking about modern values, but in their perverse or extreme form. Let the record be set straight here that modern values with an emphasis on growth and consumption are not inherently bad or wrong or anything like that. Like any phenomenon, when taken to an extreme, bad things happen. Material goods are wonderful parts of life, but when accumulating becomes the “end” and not the “means, that’s the unhealthy aspect. Okay, we’re good there, I hope.

So Haque offers eudaimonia, what the ancient Greeks called a meaningfully well-lived life (I had to look it up, too)– it’s about doing, achieving, fulfilling, becoming, inspiring, transcending, creating, accomplishing. He explains some key principles of his eudaimonia.

Living, (working, and playing) not just having.
Better, not just more.
Becoming, not just being.
Creating and building, not just trading and raiding.
Depth, not just immediacy.

In ConsumerShift terms, he’s talking about the move to toward postmodern and integral values. It’s really helpful to see how others are describing the ConsumerShift and Haque’s piece is a good read. Andy Hines

About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

About Andy Hines

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