Life in Three Dimensions: A Briggs Blog Book Review

One of the first questions that invariably comes up before anyone pursues a financial planning relationship is “What are your goals? What do you want to get out of working together?” For many people, the answer initially to that question is fundamental and strategic. That could mean building savings, paying down debt, starting to invest, funding the kids’ post-secondary education, buying a home – all of which we are taught are prudent and good and generally accepted answers.

But eventually, most people tend to think beyond these well-trod roads and start to look inward as to what might help their life be more fulfilling. This is where things get messy, because everyone is different when it comes to what fulfills them. Traditionally, this topic has taken a look at two key vectors – happiness and meaning – as a means of sorting these qualities, with the goal invariably being to build a life with as much overlap of these two vectors as possible (and if this already feels like the coordinate graph used to define the greatness of poetry in the movie Dead Poets Society, trust me I am with you, hear me out). 

This book Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life by Shigehiro Oishi, PhD. challenges that paradigm. Armed with a slew of both studies and anecdotes from decades of research, Oishi offers a new thesis – that we should actually be considering a third vector, psychological richness, to complement happiness and meaning in analyzing how fulfilling one’s life is and where there may be opportunities for exploration and growth. After proposing this framework, the book spends the majority of its duration looking at that vector from a variety of perspectives, from broad-sweeping events and their impact to the smallest of happenings and routines and how everything we experience fits in and interacts with this three-dimensional thought structure. His arguments and data supporting psychological richness as an essential measure are compelling, and he gives excellent examples of how to incorporate that into one’s life.

“Simplifying one’s life so as to have reliably positive experiences or contentment is key to happiness. Dedicating one’s life to others with compassion is key to meaning. Experiencing the unusual, challenging oneself and learning new things – though frustrating and unpleasant at times – are key to psychological richness.“

“When you know what you want to maximize ( happiness, meaning or richness ), you can start structuring your life and curating experiences that align with your goals.“

In my opinion, this book is terrific, so long as you have reasonable expectations for what this book is and what it is not. This book is written with wonderful stories that are memorable, which means they can be recalled and applied as a heuristic by the reader. There is certainly a layer of data and academia infused in the conversation this book facilitates, but by no means is it dense. By the same token, this is not a piece I would be scrambling to cite in a white paper for an academic publication, nor do I believe it was written to be taken as such. It balances the authenticity of decades of study with relatable, actionable ideas to help the reader explore a very intimate and complex topic, and does it rather succinctly at just shy of 200 pages for the body of the text in a conversational and approachable format.

Bottom line: If your goal is to explore the ideas surrounding how to construct and live a more meaningful life, this book is a great starting point to nudge you out the door to begin your journey. At a minimum, this is a book I would highly recommend checking out, and for me, it is written well enough and will likely be increasingly relevant as I age such that I will reread it, so I have a copy on my shelf for future exploration.