According to Harvard professor Ellen Langer, when we live on autopilot, “we’re not there to know we’re not there”. Life happens, but we can often miss it.

Prof Langer, who has spent decades studying mindfulness, talks about the cost of mindlessness – the time we lose when we stop noticing our lives. We meet deadlines. We answer messages. We keep things ticking over. But there are days, sometimes weeks, where nothing quite stands out. 

That sense – of time moving quickly but without texture – is something many people recognise, even if they don’t name it. And while the common advice might be to find meaning or purpose, another term has emerged in recent years that’s worth our attention: psychological richness.

The concept was introduced by University of Chicago psychology professor Shigehiro Oishi and colleagues, who describe it as a life characterised by “variety, novelty, and interest”. 

They suggest that while happiness and meaning are important, they can become repetitive, and sometimes even dull, if they’re not accompanied by a richness of experience.

Psychological richness refers to a life filled with varied, emotionally engaging, and thought-provoking experiences. It’s the kind of richness that emerges not from comfort or routine, but from moments that challenge, surprise, or stir something in us. It might involve trying a new skill, having different or unexpected conversations, or taking an interest in something outside your orbit.

There’s real wisdom in the advice to “Try something new every day”. Perhaps we needn’t go as far as every day, but new experiences certainly help us to feel less like we’re “going through the motions” and more like we’re living life. 

Of course, routine is important. There’s comfort in structure and habit, and for many, it provides a sense of stability. But without the occasional jolt of novelty, we risk becoming mentally stagnant.

Without new experiences, we also risk falling into a kind of emotional flatness. The days may be filled, but they aren’t fulfilling. While the language of “burnout” or “stress” is common, less spoken about is this sense of detachment, where time passes but little feels meaningful.

It’s not always obvious. Sometimes it’s a lack of enthusiasm, or a sense that conversations feel recycled. Other times it’s the feeling of looking back on a year and struggling to recall moments that felt significant. This is where psychological richness offers something distinctive.

Unlike happiness, which can centre on ease, or purpose, which looks to direction, richness offers depth. To have experiences that affect us deeply, we need to consciously engage in seeking out the new and novel.

Varied experiences stretch us. They’re thought-provoking, and evoke emotion. The danger in avoiding such moments isn’t catastrophe – it’s inertia. The feeling that life has become too carefully managed.

In her book, The Top Five Regrets Of The Dying (2011), Bronnie Ware notes that the most common regret people voiced was, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”. To live true to who we are isn’t only a matter of values. It’s also making space for experiences that speak to our curiosity and spirit – especially when they don’t serve a neat purpose.

A rich life, psychologically speaking, goes beyond efficiency or comfort. It allows for the unexpected, the awkward, the unfamiliar – and recognising the value these things can bring. That might mean starting something new later in life. It might mean sitting with a book you don’t immediately enjoy, or joining a group activity without knowing whether you’ll fit in.

In all these cases, the point isn’t to become someone else. It’s to wake up to what you might be missing when life is always lived within the usual bounds.

To borrow the oft-repeated mantra from bank chairman Datuk Lee Lung Nien, psychological richness invites us to “Get a life”. He advises that becoming a more well-rounded person doesn’t just make us more interesting to others – it makes us more interested in others as we become more open and curious.

Those who live psychologically rich lives tend to become more emotionally attuned. They ask better questions, and they listen with greater attention. Not because they’ve trained themselves to, but because they’ve cultivated a sense of pleasure in looking beyond the normal.

Psychological richness doesn’t require radical change. It simply asks that we notice what we’re doing, and why. It also encourages us to resist the impulse to fill every spare moment with convenience or noise, and instead make space for moments we don’t plan or measure.

A psychologically rich life doesn’t promise happiness; instead, it makes us feel we’re living life rather than letting life happen around us. And as the years pass, we might come to remember them not because they were productive, but because something stirred us, stayed with us, and gave shape to our life in a way we could feel, not just remember.