ICL: How to Live a Good Life

Description

How to Live a Good Life - Course Instructor George Owen 

Course fee $30. (Requires ICL membership - $30 annually if not already a member).

How to Live a Good Life is the search for happiness, well-being and civility in a difficult world. This course begins with primary sources from ancient Greek thinking and other past resources, then quickly moves into more modern times. The core of this multi-week study, revised and updated, will be centered on the massive 85-year-old "Harvard Study of Adult Development" which features continuous multi-generational research on thousands of people, and emphasizes happiness, meaning, and long-term health. Other top modern thinkers in this area range from researchers such as Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky to practical models of happiness/well-being such as the Dalai Lama. Today there have been been solid studies in happiness/well-being by the social and even biological sciences which the class will encounter. The class subject is no "Pollyanna" approach, and will include some criticisms of America's obsession with finding happiness - not everyone can acquire such easily. Students will be introduced to many current resources on this subject. The course concludes with including some thoughts on our need in America for more civility to enhance happiness/well-being. The class also affords much discussion by the students. Those in the class may join George for lunch in the lounge adjoining the classroom and even sometimes an easy conversational hike nearby. (Oh, George continues to claim to need this class himself as much or more than other students!) 

George Owen is probably best known in ICL for previously leading courses on hiking in the Southern Appalachians and northern Florida. His own background for this current course originates from studies as a young adult in graduate degrees from Emory U. and Scarritt/Vanderbilt (M.Div. and M.A.). Graduate work perked up George's interest in philosophy and basic aspects of schools of psychotherapy. After graduate studies, George began his career with hospital administrative positions, then served years as a pastor in the United Methodist Church and the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship. He and his former wife Sandy raised two sons and have four grandchildren. George has been deeply involved in the outdoors for decades, having laid out and supervised construction of about 125 miles of local U.S. Forest Service trails. In earlier retirement years he also served ten years part-summers as a guide in the Swiss Alps. He is currently president of the Mountain High Hikers trekking club