One must be careful of general sweeping statements...but I'll venture this one: it's all about energy. Do the things you do and say and think and feel, enhance your energy or deplete it?
"It was the best of times and the worst of times." Charles Dickens. Maybe the best first line ever written? I think it could always, every day, be considered "true."
My new "Socrates," is the filmmaker (long dead) Nicholas Ray (his most famous movie - "Rebel Without a Cause.") Here are a few gems from Nick:
"Learn your limitations and take advantage of them.
Don't turn away from possible futures before you're quite certain you have nothing to learn from them. You're free to choose another (different) future, another past.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in it's hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Anyone worth knowing is a little odd."