What is the good life, and where have we and especially I fallen short in my 65+ years?
The question is old, and our education of the last 55+ years falls woefully short. A summary of what we are increasingly taught in our secular society:
You are special individual, unfettered by family, tradition, religion, historical mores and social norms. Your personal happiness is your prime objective, and ought be the objective of society, your community, your family, and all who you deal with. Whatever or whoever is impeding or insufficiently aiding you must be removed/ Your singular responsibility is for you to be happy, at ease, not "triggered". and sufficiently valued. This is your right, independent of your actions. You bear n responsibility for your happiness, problems with your deserved state are always the fault of others,
Your "purpose" is enjoying life as you see fit. Distraction via meda of all sorts, substances, sexual experimentation, "resisting" what you will be taught to resist ... the patriarchy, white privilege, the narrative that Western civilization is "good", when in fact it is evil, and can be ignored, any sort of traditional role like motherhood, fatherhood, respect for your parents and other elders is not desirable, and is likely to damage your quest for pleasure which is synonymous with happiness. You can increase and signal your virtue by pointing out where others fall short of your values.
An alternate view is based on thousands of years of historical experience and thought which paint a very different picture -- one assiduously avoided in modern education at all levels. Attempts to expose students to these views in any manner save derision are increasingly illegal.
You are dust, and to dust you will return. This world is not all that is, and it is meaning provided by your relationship to an eternal God/transcendent , or at least historical expressions of virtue and meaning. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" provides a good secular introduction to the good/meaningful life. The Bible is the standard which Western civilization was based on up to around the 1950s. "God and Man At Yale" provides a synopsis of a decent point to consider as the start of the change to this 2nd view of the good life. "The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom is an excellent book to explore this change in more depth.
The traditional view of the good life is based on transcendent values, best described in the Bible. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling your responsibilities to God, family, community, country and vocation are the keys to a meaningful life. The goal of life is virtue in following God's leading in your life. Trials will be a part of this life in this "Vale of Tears", but they can be endured and even be seen as a source of meaning in themselves, as from the perspective of adulthood. the discipline provided by your parents can be seen as valuable.
There are many ways of summarizing these conflicting views. The first is essentially Godless/materialist ... man is the measure of all things, and ultimately that means you make that measure. The second is essentially God centered. Secularly, Socrates stated it as "I know nothing" in recognition of the vastness of human history and the universe. In the Bible, Proverbs 9:10 states it as "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding'.
Another way of differentiating them would be that the first view trends toward arrogance and ingratitude, the second tends toward humility and gratitude.
My goal here is to SUMMARIZE so that modern short attention spans have a chance of following the top statements, and possibly the summaries in the Blog posts linked. I hold out very little hope that many will dig below that level to the actual source materia, though hope does spring eternal!
My personal journey moved from a shallow though deepening adherence to view #1 through college. It was the "enlightened view", and "progress" was assured, I flirted with atheism and materialism as I studied Computer Science. The death of a High School somewhat romantic interest in a car accident at age 24 led me to begin some soul searching, but my idol would continue to be money and career for way longer than I like to admit.