Well-being is to live in a state of flourishing. Ultimately, only you can decide whether or not you are flourishing. It can be a conscious decision or an unconscious one. I highly recommend making it a conscious decision as it helps fulfill our desire for control as human beings. There is something to be said about developing such a strong state of well-being that you are no longer consciously concerned about being “successful” as the world declares success but instead you live in a state of well-being that believes God, gods, the universe, some exterior force, has created you, wants the best for you, and understands the cosmos at a much deeper level than you are capable of understanding, be your guide.

            Sometimes over the last decade, I stopped trying to control where I was going and what I was meant for and, for lack of better terminology, “let go.” Now, I frequently have people tell me how jealous they are that I seem to get everything I want out of life. I generally laugh and tell them the truth. It is not that I get everything I want out of life because this is not where I wanted myself to be. I have simply accepted where I am in life and decided that I will be happy with what I have. I make sure they allow me go on to say that this acceptance of what I had been given has, for reasons beyond my understanding and control, also led me to want that which I have. This balance between wanting what I have and accepting what is given while continuing to exist in a constant state of change and growth, has led me to a state of well-being which I am content, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all the connotations that go with this word, happy to exist in.

            Well-being is not something you achieve and then you’re done. In many ways, it is as I interpret John Wesley descriptions of salvation written in his journals and sermons. There will be moments when our hearts are “strangely warmed” like Wesley’s experience at Aldersgate. But these are states, not traits. Feeling our hearts “strangely warmed” is not a permanent state of being. You do not exist in a constant state of exhilaration, just as you do not exist in a constant state of well-being. It takes work on the individual or communities’ part to maintain a state of well-being which they will fall in and out of. Well-being is a state in which the length and intensity of the time you spend in this state varies. An overall state of wellbeing is one in which you spend more time flourishing than not flourishing.