The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness

by Emily Esfahani Smith

To Aristotle, eudaimonia is not a fleeting positive emotion. Rather, it is something you do. Leading a eudaimonic life, Aristotle argued, requires cultivating the best qualities within you both morally and intellectually and living up to your potential. It is an active life, a life in which you do your job and contribute to society, a life in which you are involved in your community, a life, above all, in which you realize your potential, rather than squander your talents.

Psychologists have picked up on Aristotle’s distinction. If hedonia is defined as “feeling good,” they argue, then eudaimonia is defined as “being and doing good”—and as “seeking to use and develop the best in oneself” in a way that fits with “one’s deeper principles.” It is a life of good character. And it pays dividends.

Leading a meaningful life, by contrast, corresponded with being a “giver,” and its defining feature was connecting and contributing to something beyond the self.

For the darvishes, the pursuit of personal happiness was completely beside the point. Rather, they focused constantly on how they could make themselves useful to others, how they could help other people feel happier and more whole, and how they could connect to something larger. They crafted lives that mattered—which leaves just one question for the rest of us: How can we do the same?

Only by facing challenges head-on can we truly find meaning in our lives.

We can’t control whether someone will make a high quality connection with us, but we can all choose to initiate or reciprocate one. We can decide to respond kindly, rather than antagonistically, to an annoying colleague. We can say hello to a stranger on the street rather than avert our eyes. We can choose to value people rather than devalue them. We can invite people to belong.

The search for meaning is not a solitary philosophical quest, as it’s often depicted, and as I thought it was in college—and meaning is not something that we create within ourselves and for ourselves. Rather, meaning largely lies in others. Only through focusing on others do we build the pillar of belonging for both ourselves and for them. If we want to find meaning in our own lives, we have to begin by reaching out.

Purpose, by contrast, is a goal toward which we are always working. It is the forward-pointing arrow that motivates our behavior and serves as the organizing principle of our lives.

Second, purpose involves a contribution to the world. It is, Damon writes with his colleagues, “a part of one’s personal search for meaning, but it also has an external component, the desire to make a difference in the world, to contribute

to matters larger than the self.” That could mean advancing human rights or working to close the achievement gap in education, but it works on a smaller level, too. Teens who help their families with tasks like cleaning, cooking, and caring ...

The famed twentieth-century psychologist Erik Erikson described identity as complex and multifaceted; it involves not only who a person is but also where he comes from, where he is going, and how he fits into society and the broader world. Someone who has a solid grasp of his identity knows his core beliefs, his values and life goals, and how his groups and communities have shaped him. He is able to answer the central question that emerges during young adulthood, which is: What kind of person am I and what kind of person do I want to be? And yet identity isn’t static.

At every stage of life, he must actively revisit these questions. Toward the end of life, that means asking not What kind of person do I want to be? but What kind of person have I been, and am I okay with

that? A person who has lived according to his values and accomplished his life goals will feel “ego integrity,” as Eri...

For both of them, finding purpose required a critical step beyond self-knowledge: using that knowledge to figure out how they could best contribute to society. Today, they employ their skills to help others live better lives—Coss by helping people stay healthy and Manjari by creating an elevating experience for her audience.

Kant’s ideas, as the contemporary philosopher Gordon Marino points out, fly in the face of the current cultural imperative, often heard during graduation season, to “do what you love.” To Kant, the question is not what makes you happy. The question is how to do your duty, how to best contribute—or,

or, as the theologian Frederick Buechner put it, your vocation lies “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” —

they see their jobs as a way to help others. In

Grant’s research offers a clue about how people working in any sector can find purpose at work—by adopting a service mindset.

The women who found their work dull were just as productive and energized as those who found it rewarding, but only if they saw their work as a way to support their families. Even the most tedious tasks can be made purposeful when they benefit the people you love.

Not all of us will find our calling. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find purpose. The world is full of retail clerks, coupon sorters, accountants, and students. It is full of highway flaggers, parents, government bureaucrats, and bartenders. And it is full of nurses, teachers, and clergy who get bogged down in paperwork and other day-to-day tasks, and sometimes lose sight of their broader mission. Yet no matter what occupies our days, when we reframe our tasks as opportunities to help others, our lives and our work feel more significant. Each of us has a circle of people—in our families, in our communities, and at work—whose lives we can

improve. That’s a legacy everyone can leave behind.

After analyzing hundreds of these life stories, McAdams has discovered some very interesting patterns in how people living meaningful lives understand and interpret their experiences. People who are driven to contribute to society and to future generations, he found, all share a common pattern: they are

more

likely to tell redemptive stories about their lives, or stories tha...

to good. In these stories, the tellers move from suffering to salvation—they experience a negative event followed by a positive event that resulted from the negative event a...

sequences. It’s important to note that telling a redemptive story doesn’t necessarily mean that our lives have objectively improved. Erik, for example, could have easily crafted a narrative in which Kate’s accident led to even more negative outcomes. Kate gets exhausted easily in social situations and continues to have problems with depth perception as a result of her brain injury. She also lost much of her memory of life before the accident. Erik could have dwelled

on all

He told a story that in part redeemed what happened to her. Emeka was in a similar situation: he could have told a story about how being paralyzed spoiled his dreams, but instead he foc...

People who tell contamination stories, McAdams has found, are less “generative,” as psychologists put it, or less driven to contribute to society and younger generations.

They also tend to be more anxious and depressed,

and to feel that their lives are less coherent compared to those who te...

McAdams has found that beyond stories of redemption, people who believe their lives are meaningful tend to tell stories defined by growth, communion, and agency. These stories allow individuals to craft a positive identity for themselves: they are in control of their lives, they are loved, they are progressing through life, and whatever

obstacles they have encountered have been redeemed by good outcomes.

We are all the authors of our own stories and can choose to change the way we’re telling them.

One of the great contributions of psychology and psychotherapy research is the idea that we can edit, revise, and interpret the stories we tell about our lives even as we are constrained by the

f...

“When seeing themselves as benefactors,” Dutton said, the fundraisers “now needed to act like givers, which called forth more pro-social behavior.”

As both groups found, dwelling on “what might have been” can be an emotionally painful process.

By sharing their stories with the audience, storytellers aren’t just creating meaning for themselves—they’re helping others do so, too. “And that’s why storytelling is so important,” continued Crabb. “I think some people think it’s all about talking about you, you, you. But what it really is is reaching out into the void and connecting with people and letting them know they’re not alone.”

Every time a good feeling like tranquillity emerged, Cory would tell himself, “This is what you want, try to hold on to this.” But the feeling would pass away. Every time he felt pain, he would tell himself, “This is bad, try to resist this.” But then that feeling, too, would pass away.

“Eventually, I said, ‘Screw it. Stop trying to hold on to the experiences you want and let go of experiences you don’t want. In life there will be good things and bad things,’ ” he realized, “ ‘and you can try to pull in all of the good things and push away all of the bad things,

everything will change anyway, so just let go.’ Once I did, there was no pushing or pulling anymore. I could just be with my experience, and that ...

writes the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, “the cloud will change into rain or snow or ice. If you look deeply into the rain, you can see the cloud. The cloud is not lost; it is transformed into rain, and the rain is transformed into grass and the grass into cows and then to milk and then into the ice cream you eat.” The cloud did not die. It was always in the universe in one way or another. In a similar way, the transcendent experience helped Janeen see that she, too, would always be in the universe in one way or another—which is why, when the time came, it was okay for her to stop breathing. Janeen passed away in 2015.

One was purpose, which the researchers defined as “having a worthy goal or mission in life.” Another, related to purpose, was having a moral compass tied to altruism—or selflessly serving others. Each

of these themes played a role in Shibvon’s story. When her mother sent her and her siblings to the orphanage, ten-year-old Shibvon helped the nuns in the nursery care for babies who had been abandoned. There, the nuns and the babies showed

affection and care, which was healing for her, as was thinking more broadly about her life’s purpose. “I pretty much thought I was going to become what the nuns at the orphanage were, and that’s how I would take care of kids: come back and help these little kids who have had their bad troubles and make their lives better,” she said, “so that was my first goal in life.” Reflecting on and planning for that future gave her hope for a better life. She realized that she could help others by cultivating love and warmth around...

Transcendent sources of meaning also play a role in helping people cope with trauma. For example, Southwick and Charney studied Vietnam War veterans who were held as prisoners of war, some up to eight years. These men were tortured, starved, and lived in horrendous

conditions. But one of the things

that kept them going was a connection to God. Some prayed regularly in their cells and others found strength in r...

side, which meant, “We can handle this thing together,” in the words of one former POW. The prisoners also gathered together for religious and patriotic services at the infamous prison camp nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. Not all of these men were devout, Southwick and Charney found, but many of them relied on spirituality to help them endure their ordeal. In the words of one, “If you c...