“Flourishing is about living an authentic and full life.” Your Brain on Art
According to its definition, to flourish means, “to grow or develop healthily or vigorously, especially as a result of a particularly favorable environment.”
In Your Brain on Art, Magsamen and Ross use words like curious, creative, and open to describe someone who is flourishing in life.
Unlike the expectation of perfection, flourishing doesn’t require this unrealistic goal. “Instead, this approach embraces a lifelong quest to gain insights, to grow, and to thrive.”
We will explore six categories of flourishing over the next week. They are: curiosity and wonder, awe, enriched environments, creativity, novelty, and surprise. We all can cultivate these states of mind in our lives.
Due to the plasticity of our brains, we can actually train ourselves to flourish. Just like a muscle it gets stronger with use, and then becomes a habit.
As I think about aging, I love the idea of flourishing rather than lingering. Last night while I babysat my three young grandsons we talked about their future and what they hoped to be doing when they were adults. My four-year-old grandson said, “Mimi what are you going to be doing when you get older?”
I took that as an opportunity to make plans just like they were doing. They had each told me how many children they hoped to have and got a kick out of me telling them that their children would be my great-grandchildren.
So here’s to a flourishing future!
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