Realizing Your Meaning: 5 Ways to Live a Meaningful Life

Family is among the most popular topics across demographic groups. In response to the open-ended question, seven-in-ten Americans mention their family as a source of meaning and fulfillment, and a similar share say in the closed-ended question that family provides “a great deal” of meaning in their lives. While substantial shares in all major subgroups of Americans mention family, people who are married are more likely than are those who are not married to cite family as a key source of meaning. Benatar (2006, 60–92, 2017, 35–63) has advanced an additional argument for nihilism, one that appeals to Thomas Nagel’s (1986, 208–32) widely discussed analysis of the extremely external standpoint that human persons can take on their lives. There exists, to use Henry Sidgwick’s influential phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers a human being’s life in relation to all times and all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one’s puny impact on the world, little of one’s life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over 75 years or so just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of temporal years and billions of light-years that make up space-time. According to this version of naturalism, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one’s variable pro-attitudes.

This is why all the superficial stuff like make a billion dollars, or own a Rolls Royce, or get your face plastered on the cover of a magazine all lead to a type of happiness that is shallow and short-lived—because the meaning is shallow and short-lived. Studies show that our overall well-being is deeply tied to the quality of our relationships,2 and the best way to build healthy relationships is through helping others. In fact, some studies have even found that giving stuff away makes us happier than giving stuff to ourselves.3 Go figure. The more work you do towards that problem, also the more meaning you will feel.

What Is Meaning?

A similar share of those in the historically black Protestant tradition (62%) also report that their religious faith provides them with “a great deal” of meaning, including 38% who say religion is the most important source of meaning in their lives. Politically conservative Americans are more likely than liberals to find meaning in religion, while liberals find more meaning in creativity and causes than do conservatives. By contrast, the closed-ended question finds that very liberal Americans are especially likely to derive “a great deal” of meaning from arts or crafts (34%) and social and political causes (30%), compared with rates of 20% and 12% among very conservative Americans. Most analytic philosophers have been interested in meaning in life, that is, in the meaningfulness that a person’s life could exhibit, with comparatively few these days addressing the meaning of life in the narrow sense. Even those who believe that God is or would be central to life’s meaning have lately addressed how an individual’s life might be meaningful in virtue of God more often than how the human race might be. When asked in the open-ended question about what gives them a sense of meaning and satisfaction in life, married Americans are more likely than unmarried people to mention family (which includes specific references to one’s spouse or children).

Later Ford and Arthur manage to extract the question as the Earth computer would have rendered it. Ultimately, a person should not ask what the meaning of their life is, but rather must recognize that it is they themselves who are asked. In a word, each person is questioned by life; and they can only answer to life by answering for their own life; to life they can only respond by being responsible. The meaning of life is to forget about the search for the meaning of life. The answer to the meaning of life is too profound to be known and understood. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, and shares much of the latter faith’s ontology. Its central beliefs derive from the teachings of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament. Life’s purpose in Christianity is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and intercession of Christ. The New Testament speaks of God wanting to have a relationship with humans both in this life and the life to come, which can happen only if one’s sins are forgiven. Cyrenaics prefer immediate gratification to the long-term gain of delayed gratification; denial is unpleasant unhappiness.

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Moreover, pragmatism posits that anything useful and practical is not always true, arguing that what most contributes to the most human good in the long course is true. In practice, theoretical claims must be practically verifiable, i.e. one should be able to predict and test claims, and, that, ultimately, the needs of humankind should guide human intellectual inquiry. Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being that the physical world is outside one’s full control and thus one cannot be held accountable for the events that occur in it. Classical liberalism is a set of ideas that arose in the 17th and 18th centuries, out of conflicts between a growing, wealthy, propertied class and the established aristocratic and religious orders that dominated Europe. Liberalism cast humans as beings with inalienable natural rights (including the right to retain the wealth generated by one’s own work), and sought out means to balance rights across society. Broadly speaking, it considers individual liberty to be the most important goal, because only through ensured liberty are the other inherent rights protected. Stoicism’s prime directives are virtue, reason, and natural law, abided to develop personal self-control and mental fortitude as means of overcoming destructive emotions. The Stoic does not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles, by developing clear judgment and inner calm through diligently practiced logic, reflection, and concentration. In Platonism, the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value.

Thus, a sense of significance permeates every dimension of meaning, rather than standing as a separate factor. Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because they are incapable of independent reproduction or metabolism. This classification is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent life. Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, including replicating structures made from materials other than DNA. You might wonder if these findings are attributable to other factors, or to factors already in play by the time participants joined the study. The authors undertook stringent analyses to account for this, which revealed largely similar patterns of findings. There’s a high degree of overlap between experiencing happiness and meaning. Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares what it means to be ‘wholly human,’ featuring GRAMMY award-winning singer LeAnn Rimes. Verywell Mind’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

For example, if pleasing God would greatly enhance meaning in our lives, then presumably displeasing God would greatly reduce it and to a comparable degree. In addition, there are arguments for extreme naturalism (or its “anti-theist” cousin) mentioned below (sub-section 3.3). Managing our reactions can help us respond better to our lives, leadership and living. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Feelings Sober Home are your mind and body giving you information on what needs to change. You don’t need to obsess over them, but use that information to your advantage. Spirituality is one way to make sense of life’s biggest questions, but it’s not the only source of order. When the universe seems too big and too senseless, try taking a walk in nature. Think about how predictably trees flower, shed their leaves, endure winter, and begin the cycle all over again in the spring.

Answering such a big question might be challenging for many people. Even among researchers, there is little consensus about the best way to measure what brings human beings satisfaction and fulfillment. Traditional survey questions – with a prespecified set of response options – may not capture important sources of meaning. Another salient argument for thinking that God would detract from meaning in life appeals to the value of privacy (Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 55–110). God’s omniscience would unavoidably make it impossible for us to control another person’s access to the most intimate details about ourselves, which, for some, amounts to a less meaningful life than one with such control. Lacking complete knowledge of our mental states would be compatible with describing God as “omniscient,” so the criticism goes, insofar as that is plausibly understood as having as much knowledge as is morally permissible. Cross-cutting the moderate/extreme distinction is that between subjectivism and objectivism, which are theoretical accounts of the nature of meaningfulness insofar as it is physical. They differ in terms of the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings. Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual’s pro-attitudes such as her particular desires or ends, which are not shared by everyone. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she strongly wants it or intends to seek it out and she gets it.

This emphasis on normal living is seen in the Confucianist scholar Tu Wei-Ming’s quote, «We can realize the ultimate meaning of life in ordinary human existence.» Embodied cognition uses the neurological basis of emotion, speech, and cognition to understand the nature of thought. Computers use logic programming to effectively query databases but humans rely on a trained biological neural network. Postmodern philosophies that use the indeterminacy of symbolic language to deny definite meaning ignore those who feel they know what they mean and feel that their interlocutors know what they mean. Choosing the correct metaphor results in enough common understanding to pursue questions such as the meaning of life. Improved knowledge of brain function should result in better treatments producing healthier brains. When combined with more effective training, a sound personal assessment as to the meaning of one’s life should be straightforward.

Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, was important in a negative sense since his policies caused widespread suffering to innumerous people. Mahayana Buddhist schools de-emphasize the traditional view of the release from individual Suffering and attainment of Awakening . In Mahayana, the Buddha is seen as an eternal, immutable, inconceivable, omnipresent how to create meaning in life being. Søren Kierkegaard spoke about a «leap», arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully in an unconditional commitment to something finite and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.

Society has attempted to place a square around what it values as a success and for this reason there are many wealthy, unhappy and unfulfilled people. These same people find joy and happiness when they lose themselves in service to others through volunteer work or any social community charitable work. In truth, many of these same people feel a sense of lack and emptiness because the pursuit or goal was not imbued with passion and purpose. They failed to acknowledge the deeper meaning behind why they set out to achieve that goal in the first place. For instance a person sweeping floors can define their life as being meaningful if the money they earn provides adequate food and shelter for their family. Many people believe that to give meaning to life requires a pilgrimage to a desolate part of the world, working with indigenous tribes and being of service. Instead of reflection, Lao Tzu proposes a deep understanding of the essence of existence, which is mysterious. We, like rivers and trees, are part of “the way,” which is made of everything and makes everything and cannot ever truly be known or spoken of.

Unless there’s a why behind the goal full of meaning, the goal itself will provide little long-term happiness or satisfaction. For thousands of years, humans needed to remember where certain food could be found, how various animals would respond when hunted, how weather patterns change and how to read the terrain. They also needed to know what would gain them acceptance within their tribe, what would curry favor from friends and earn approval from that sexy guy/gal in the loin cloth over yonder. As humans, we have a constant need to attach meaning to everything that happens in our lives. Charles Allan Gilbert’s All is Vanity, an example of vanitas, depicts a young woman amidst her makeup and perfumes, preoccupied with her own beauty at the mirror of her vanity. But all is positioned in such a way as to make the image of a skull appear, expressing memento mori, that no matter how good she looks, it won’t last, as death is inevitable. Since humanity possesses free will, people must be responsible for their moral choices. By using free will, people must take an active role in the universal conflict, with good thoughts, good words and good deeds to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. Devotional schools such as Pure Land Buddhism seek the aid of celestial buddhas—individuals who have spent lifetimes accumulating positive karma, and use that accumulation to aid all.

• Despite ample advice from experts, individuals regularly engage in activities that may only have short-term benefit for well-being, or even backfire.
• Although these theories do not imply that some people’s lives are in fact meaningful, that has been the presumption of a very large majority of those who have advanced them.
• Common instances are views that one’s life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, achieves one’s highly ranked goals, or does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008).
• A regress on meaningful conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something so all-encompassing that it need not go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else.
• If you have a sibling, you share an irreplaceable bond with them.