SGSI 2024: Flourishing: The Art and Science of a Life Well Lived
Monday, Sept. 9 – Friday Sept. 13, 9 AM - 2 PM
This course explores human flourishing and how to practice it in an age of hyper-complexity and ever-accelerating pace. We will engage these ideas through research-informed reading, class discussion, and guided practice related to the psychological, emotional, and social factors that promote a well-lived life. Graduate students from a range of disciplines will learn how to transform this learning from concept to lived experience.
Instructors
- Frederic Luskin, PhD, director, Stanford Forgiveness Project
- Jessica Jacobson, PsyD
Audience & Capacity
Open to all graduate students in any discipline* and postdoctoral scholars (if space allows). Space limited to 32.
*MSx Class of 2025 and first-year MBA students are ineligible to participate due to mandatory program requirements.
Objectives
By participating fully in this course, you will:
- Understand research-based models of well-being and key factors that enhance or degrade flourishing.
- Investigate and apply tools and skills that increase subjective well-being and flourishing in measurable ways.
- Develop a personal flourishing framework to support a life well-lived through the fall quarter (and beyond).
Summary
Our current cultural moment has laid bare megatrends that are defining our emerging future while also highlighting a global crisis in well-being. In particular, 3-D change (change that is perpetual, pervasive, and exponential) and human-technology convergence (humans and complex technology increasingly integrating) are transforming the rhythms of daily life with profound implications for the future of work and the future of living. Simply put, many of us feel continually rushed, pressured, and stressed without a clear sense of why this is happening or how we successfully navigate these experiences. Within this context, we are asking and engaging the question, “What is flourishing and how do we live it more fully?”
This course (or, more accurately, workshop) explores the science and art of human flourishing and how to live it in an age of hyper-complexity and ever-accelerating pace. We will explore these ideas through research-informed readings, class discussions, and guided practices related to the psychological, emotional, and social factors that promote a well-lived life. Using a pedagogical approach that blends the investigation of mental maps (theories, ideas, research) with tool-building (skills, application, praxis) and experiential learning (learn by doing), we seek to create a learning environment that helps you shift both your understanding and lived experience of well-being and flourishing. Course elements include contemplative practices, cognitive and behavior tools, discussion groups, journaling, self-assessment, and intention/goal setting.
Graduate students from a range of disciplines will learn how to transform this learning from concept to lived experience. This course is open to anyone who desires to engage honestly and authentically with their own life in service of creating the foundation for a life well-lived. As such, come prepared to do meaningful introspection and share interpersonally with colleagues within a psychologically supportive and safe environment.
Additional Course Expectations
- Full attendance is expected.
SUNet ID required to log in; all SGSI correspondence sent to your Stanford email account.