Abstract
According to “the careerist conception of well-being,” a worthwhile life must involve the realization of a life plan that the agent has freely, consciously, and reflectively chosen from a position of self-knowledge and realistic foresight about her like future circumstances; that it includes the setting of short-, medium, and long-term challenges based on that overall plan, and ongoing success at meeting these challenges. This conception of well-being expresses a live philosophical position, but it should be rejected on the ground that it is exclusionary, for it cannot accommodate the hopes and fears, pleasures and pains, and dreams and disappointment of numerous forms of human life.