Meaning is not just part of happiness but, in some ways, a different form of it. We strive to find meaning in much the same way that we strive to be happy, although the path to each is very different. In his philosophical tome Meanings of Life, Roy F. Baumeister mentions the findings of a study of 2013 of nearly 400 adults, comparing a happy life to a meaningful one. The researchers discovered differences across a variety of experiences:
Having good things happen to you:
Satisfying our needs and wants seems to bring us happiness but not meaning. For example, people who were healthy or felt good tended to be happier but not necessarily have more meaning in their lives.
Having money:
Money is also a harbinger of happiness but not meaning. People who can buy the things they want and need are happier but don’t necessarily have more meaning in life.
Living in the present:
People who spend more time thinking about the present tend to be happier, while those who think more about the past and future are less happy – but rate their lives as more meaningful. This makes sense, given that purpose (which orients past, present, and future around a long-term goal) is a key part of meaning.
Being a giver:
People who give more tend to have more meaningful lives. For example, people who spend more time helping others in need or taking care of children tend to have more meaning in life. People who value relationships more than achievement also have more meaningful lives. Interestingly, spending more time with friends is linked to more happiness while spending more time with loved ones is linked to more meaning in life – perhaps because our relationships with family involve more giving (and annoying relatives).
Feeling bad:
The negatives in life are tied to less happiness, unsurprisingly, but also to more meaning. This is the case for people who had more negative events happen in their life, who were more stressed, who worried more, and who spent more time thinking about past challenges and struggles – they all tended to be less happy but rate their lives as more meaningful. Whether they saw life as easy or a struggle was reflected in their happiness levels, but it didn’t seem to affect their sense of meaning.
Focusing on the self:
It’s not always easy to take a good look at ourselves, and people who spent more time thinking about personal identity were less happy. But they also had more meaning in life, suggesting that a meaningful life may require some level of self-reflection and self-knowledge.
Meaning and happiness don’t always diverge, of course. In Baumeister’s study, happiness was highly correlated with meaning, and some things – for example, having more positive events in life or feeling connected to others – were linked to both. Meaning is another path to fulfilment, one that works when things aren’t so rosy. And it can create a profound sense of fulfilment that makes us happy in the long run, too.
3 exercises for making meaning
These exercises can boost our sense of meaning in life – and also give us some direction for our New Year’s resolutions. Once a week for the next few weeks, pick one to try:
1. Best Possible Self
In the Best Possible Self exercise, developed by University of Missouri professor Laura King, you take 15 minutes to write about an ideal future life (1-10 years from now). Imagine everything is going as well as possible, from family and personal life to career and health. Be creative and specific, and focus on your potential rather than any past shortcomings. Doing this daily for two weeks has been shown to increase positive emotion, possibly because it helps us identify goals, feel more in control of our lives, and maybe even decide to change things. When you identify a goal, you can take another day to journal about the steps you have taken to achieve it, imagining you’re already there. And goals are signposts on the way to purpose.
2. Life story
In this exercise, based on work by Northwestern University professor Dan McAdams, you are prompted to write the story of your life as if it were a book. You divide your life into chapters, and describe its highs and lows and turning points. You recall scenes from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, as well as the ͞characters who have played a role in your life story. You reflect on your greatest challenge in life and how your future might turn out (for good or ill). In the end, you may gain some clarity into your life’s overarching theme. In his 2005 Stanford commencement address, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs tells the story of his life and his purpose – and how he discovered it through dropping out of college, being fired from Apple, and facing the prospect of death:
3. Awe
When Viktor Frankl was living in a concentration camp, he made a curious observation. Sometimes, his fellow prisoners organized ͞cabarets, where they would sing songs, read poems, and tell jokes. And starving as everyone was, some would choose to skip meals in order to attend or participate. The smallest beauties took on special significance for the prisoners. During a long march, they would sometimes marvel at a striking wintry vista and point it out to each other. Amidst the horror, there was still a thread of the spiritual. Frankl concluded that one way to find meaning in life is in the contemplation of art, beauty, and nature, which imparts a pleasure similar to the contemplation of one’s beloved. These days, the science of happiness is studying such experiences under the name of awe. We feel awe when we’re faced with something greater than ourselves that we can’t comprehend with our current knowledge. For example, we might feel awe on top of a huge mountain, or in the face of a revolutionary idea or a heroic person. One study found that people feeling awe (induced by looking up at huge trees) felt less self-important and less entitled, and acted kinder and more generous (asking for less money to participate in the experiment). Other research has shown that even brief experiences of awe increase modesty, humility, intellectual curiosity, and happiness, while having a physical effect that no other positive emotion does –lowering cytokine levels (associated with disease). Various studies out of Stanford have shown that awe makes us feel like we have more time on our hands, even more than feelings of happiness do.. For example, writing about awe makes people less impatient and more likely to volunteer their time (but not their money) than writing about happiness. People feeling awe report being more satisfied with life and are more likely to choose to buy an experience (vs. a material good), which requires time to enjoy. Awe seems to take us out of everyday, mundane experience and connect us to something bigger and more beautiful – more meaningful, you might say. If you’d like to experience awe, try one of these practices:
- Take an Awe Walk: Take a walk somewhere that’s new and vast, like hiking up a mountain, heading to the rooftop of a building, or exploring a historic cathedral. Turn off your cell phone, and try to cultivate a sense of wonder at the sights around you. (Then, if you can, bring this sense of wonder and curiosity to everyday life.)
- Write an Awe Narrative: Have you felt awe recently? Spend 15 minutes writing about a recent experience of awe, describing where you were, what you saw, and how you felt.
- Watch an Awe Video: If you can’t get outside, watching a video like this one of Yosemite National Park should reliably induce awe.
- Read an Awe Story
If meaning is truly made, not found, it’s not something we’re going to happen upon eventually. The choices we make today – of how we spend our time, what we prioritize, which paths we take – will affect what our lives mean tomorrow. Don’t leave the question to the philosophers, because they can’t decide what meaning your life has to you.
Originally published at the Positive Psychlopedia
