Work can be thankless or productive, a sacrifice or a reason to get out of bed in the morning, the cornerstone of a worthwhile life or a crucible of exploitation.
This ability to form, revise, and pursue conceptions of a worthwhile life is taken to be of paramount value, the exclusive source of human dignity, and thereby the basis of human rights (Griffin 2008 27 444).
For instance, the concept of a worthwhile life is probably not identical to that of a meaningful one (Baier 1997, ch. 5; Metz 2012).
But life is incremental, and though a worthwhile life is a gathering together of all that one is, good and bad, successful and not, the paradox is that we can never really see this one thing that all of our increments (and decrements, I suppose) add up to.
In "The Art of Living" (University of California, 1998), he argued that the philosophical quest for a worthwhile life does not involve the application of universal principles; each life is given shape in a particular and idiosyncratic manner.
For Epicurus, philosophy was the only discipline considered indispensable to a worthwhile life and only insofar as the study of nature enabled philosophers to care for their soul by casting out suffering on account of false assumptions about the world and enabling them to enjoy undefiled pleasures (Ep. Men. 122, KD 12; Porphyry, Ad Marcellam 31 = fr. 221 Usener).
More and more people are channeling their energies into living a well-rounded life, and I believe that this is partially because we, as a society, are changing the definition of what constitutes a "worthwhile life".
Ideally, the families of radicals would be closely involved, helping to convince the detainee that a worthwhile life awaits him outside jail.
They advocate a distinction between "a worthwhile life" and "a life not worth living" [ 65].
Pain acceptance is the process of giving up the struggle with pain and learning to live a worthwhile life despite it.
