Three Ways of Living

Kierkegaard described three ways a person can live. In the aesthetic way, life is steered by interest and mood: what is pleasant, new or amusing. In the ethical way, a person commits to duties and to others and keeps them when the mood fades.

A third, which he called religious, rests on trust that goes beyond what can be proved, a leap in the face of uncertainty. You do not need his religion to see the pattern. Some choices we make on trust, such as having a child or taking a risk for a cause.

He saw these as stages ranked from lower to higher, each later one taking up the earlier, and a life is meant to move up through them. This lesson also uses the scheme as a mirror: ask which way a given choice comes from, and whether it is the one you would choose on purpose.

The Saturday choice

Jun has Saturday free. Left to his mood, he would sleep late and scroll. Instead he has promised to help a neighbor move, and he goes, though he does not feel like it.

That evening he thinks about a larger choice: whether to leave a safe job to start a clinic. No list of pros and cons settles it. He sees that Saturday ran on commitment, and the clinic will run on trust.

Try this today Write one decision you made this week, and label it mood, commitment or trust.