Do good lives make good stories?

Narrativists about well-being claim that our lives go better for us if they make good stories—if exhibit cohesion, thematic consistency, and narrative arc. Yet narrativism leads to mistaken assessments of well-being: prioritizing makes it harder balance change pursuits, pushes toward one-dimensionality, can’t sense the diversity lives. Some ways softening key narrativist claims mean view tell very much how live a life we find in other theories well-being; while there are smaller-scale can incorporate insights into views well-being, should not be universal organizing principle