Introduction

The introduction sets the stage of the handbook. It offers an outline of the underpinning multidisciplinary paradigm that it is anchored in, an overview of the central message that arises from all chapters: Sustainable quality of life is the result of an organically evolving alignment of multiple dimensions that influence human existence. At the individual level these include soul, heart, mind, and body expressed, respectively, as aspirations, emotions, thoughts and sensations. Each individual is part of the collective arena. Representing the micro dimension humans influence the meso, macro and meta dimensions, i.e. communities, countries and the planet, whilst being influenced by them in return. These twice four dimensions interact continuously. The central understanding that permeates all chapters in this collection is that individual wellbeing, herein referred to as quality of life as it is the central outcome of the latter, is the cause and consequence of collective wellbeing. One without the other is unsustainable, and both can be promoted by systematically assessing and addressing the mutual interplay that connects both arenas with the volition of their gradual optimization.