Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life

A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ BOOK • From one of our foremost psychologists, a trailblazing book that turns the idea of a good life on its head and urges us to embrace the transformative power of variety and experience • The guidebook to the pyshologically rich life

“Dr. Oishi’s enthusiasm for a big and bold existence is infectious” —The Wall Street Journal

"Life in Three Dimensions will give you new insights into the many ways to live well, including advice on how to pick the one most likely to be right for you." —Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation


Shigehiro Oishi's father has lived his entire life in a small mountain town in Japan. But as a young man Oishi felt compelled to follow a winding road that led him far from home. He became an award-winning psychology professor, seeking to know which path—to stay or to go, the familiar or the unknown, his father’s path or his own—is the better path to a good life. In Life in Three Dimensions, Oishi shares his journey of discovery and offers readers a groundbreaking new understanding of happiness.

What makes for a good life, he asks? Is it the simple, predictable pleasures we call happiness? Or can happiness lead to complacency and regret? Is the answer a deep sense of meaning and purpose? Or can a life of purpose invite narrow or misplaced loyalties? Both happiness and meaning as paths to a good life have decades of scientific research to support them. But in recent years, Oishi has uncovered a third dimension to a good life, psychological richness. A psychologically rich life prioritizes curiosity, exploration, and a variety of experiences. These can be as simple as taking a walk, as complex as moving to a new country. Key to a psychologically rich experience is a shift in perspective that helps us grow.

Life in Three Dimensions explores lives defined by psychological richness: those of prominent people like Steve Jobs, Oliver Sacks and Alison Gopnik; characters from literature and film; and ordinary people who--in college, at midlife, and beyond--embraced uncertainty and challenge to deepen and enrich their lives. In this wise and delightful book, Oishi shows how anyone at any age can build a fuller, more authentic life.

SHIGEHIRO OISHI is the Marshall Field IV Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is one of the foremost authorities on happiness, meaning, and culture. He is the author of The Psychological Wealth of Nations, and his research has been featured in major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.