Excerpted from Umair Haque:

“If you want to live a meaningfully better life, you’re going to have to make the dangerous choice to dissent. A life lived meaningfully isn’t denominated by digital friends, designer logos, or wads of paper notes. It’s denominated by what you’ve lived, what it’s worth to you, and what that’s worth to humanity. That’s the heart of eudaimonia, a new economic paradigm based on fulfilling human potential — not creating and marketing useless stuff. It’s so different from our current conception that I had to reach back to Ancient Greece for a name I thought captured its essence. I’m developing it further in an HBR Single — a short, digital essay I’m planning to release in December. But in the meantime, here’s how I see the crucial elements of a eudaimonic life:

Impact. Pursuing the paycheck first and last is a great way to spend your life desperately unfulfilled. Insanely great work isn’t motivated by glittering jackpots — but by an abiding desire to, as Steve Jobs put it, make a dent in the universe. So take a deep breath and aim squarely at the lofty apex of human accomplishment — while stepping firmly onto the grimy pavement.

People. Life is about people, not product. If you’re spending 80% of your time on “product”, you’re not fully alive. Lasting relationships aren’t built by “networking” but by caring. This means investing in people, not just grinning at them. Hence, if you want to “connect,” you probably have to do what’s more dangerous than merely swapping email addresses or biz cards — you have to relate.

Purpose. What is the fundamental reason you are here? To conquer the next pair of designer trophy jeans? Hardly. Brands are for cattle, strategy is for games, and consumers are for “output.” Human life is about lasting outcomes, not just short-term payoffs; hence, I’d say the stuff of razor-sharp purpose begins there. Which human outcomes are you here to transform?

Courage. Compromising too readily with the past never creates the future. It only recreates the past. You can’t find fertile new ground by dully plodding along after the herd — you’ve got to veer off in a different direction. So dream bigger. Be hopelessly naïve. And persevere unflinchingly.

Self-respect. If your society’s going haywire, it’s up to you to begin fixing it. If your work is sucking at your soul, and you see it doing relentless damage to people and society, quit and do something else. No, it’s not easy — but odds are, the axe is going to fall over the next decade anyways. Value your inner life as much as you value your outer stuff. Stop buying into marketing’s spin-cycle of self-loathing — “Feeling anxious? Buy this, now!!” — and start investing your time, energy, and imagination in action instead of stuff.

The first challenge is seeing through the empty promise of opulence. But the second, tougher challenge is refuting it. To do that, we’re going to have start living heretically. We’re going to have not just disbelieve the conventional wisdom — we’re going to have to defy it.”