Don't Overthink the Meaning of Your Life
I'm an existential psychologist, so unsurprisingly, I spend a lot of time thinking about meaning in life and other big questions. But most of my time contemplating these topics is not geared towards my own life. It's much more impersonal, directed towards reading, conducting, and synthesizing scholarly research.
This research covers many dimensions of meaning: what makes people perceive their lives as meaningful, what threatens or destabilizes their sense of meaning, and ways in which meaning helps them navigate life's challenges and overcome adversity. It also examines the relationship between meaning and other psychological states and the extent to which individuals differ in how concerned they are with meaning and related existential issues. It concerns how culture and other external factors inform the quest for meaning and how the need for meaning shapes culture, both the creative, cooperative, and innovative endeavors that drive human progress as well as the darker paths people take in their efforts to meet their existential needs. And it explores why humans even need to believe their lives have meaning in the first place.
A while back, a journalist interviewing me asked if being an existential psychologist makes me the type of person who regularly contemplates the meaning of my life and related philosophical questions. She was surprised when I told her that I don't really think that deeply about this stuff in my personal life. Actually, doing work in existential psychology for about a quarter of a century has, if anything, made me less interested in introspecting about meaning in my own life.
This isn't because I've become some kind of nihilist who thinks this entire existential enterprise is pointless. It's because I've learned that humans mainly find meaning by focusing their attention outward, not inward. Meaning is found more in action than in contemplation. When people are asked what gives their lives meaning, they don't tend to reference their own inner lives. They discuss the world outside of them, and typically the people they care most about who populate that world. Meaning is both highly agentic and social in nature. We feel most meaningful when we are engaged in activities directed toward making a positive difference in the lives of others, not when we're sitting around thinking deeply about life’s big questions.
In our spiritual lives, which often do involve contemplative exercises like meditation or prayer, the most meaningful experiences typically involve directing attention beyond ourselves. Whether through service to others, participation in communal worship, or mental practices that explicitly aim to transcend self-preoccupation, the most profound spiritual meaning emerges when we are striving to actively connect with something larger than our individual concerns.
The strong connection between meaning and social action holds even in areas of our lives that we might think are ultimately about our own personal interests and aspirations, such as our efforts to build a successful career. For example, research finds that people are more likely to derive meaning from their work when they focus on how it serves a greater good than when they focus on how it advances their personal career.
In cases where meaning is associated with more self-focused pursuits, meaning is mainly derived from taking action, not from contemplation. If you have the goal of completing a marathon, learning a new language, or building a business, any sense of meaning you gain will not come from thinking about these aspirations but instead from actually doing them. And these seemingly self-oriented ambitions tend to feel most meaningful when they also focus on others. We want our personal accomplishments to inspire or serve others, to have an impact beyond our own lives.
This doesn't mean that our existential quest is ultimately mindless. Far from it. First of all, the reason we even care about meaning in the first place is because we are a thinking species. We possess the requisite cognitive architecture to be fully aware of our existence and realize that we only have a limited amount of time to do something impactful with our lives.
In addition, to properly direct our actions towards the activities that make life meaningful, we need to think about many things. We need to adopt a moral code we want to guide our actions. We need to figure out our personal dispositions and our natural strengths and weaknesses. And then we need to identify goals and strategies to pursue them. We need to internalize life lessons and be honest with ourselves so we can learn from our mistakes as well as our accomplishments. Finding success in our relationships, whether personal or professional, requires us to be good listeners, which involves carefully thinking about what others are communicating to us. So yes, to live a meaningful life, we need to take full advantage of our cognitive capacities. But these mental activities don’t require us to spend a lot of time explicitly fixated on existential questions.
Like other personality traits, people appear to naturally vary in how much they think about meaning. Some rarely concern themselves with existential questions, while others see them everywhere they look. So if you are the type of person who is just naturally inclined to contemplate meaning, that is fine. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. But still, the key for fulfilling your need for meaning is to pursue the kinds of activities that give you a significant role to play in the lives of others and that put you on the path to achieving your goals. It might be intellectually stimulating to read existential philosophy and ponder deep questions about what it means to be human, but finding meaning is an applied, not theoretical, endeavor.
In short, my advice to anyone who is searching for meaning: don't overthink it. Dwelling on existential questions and concerns won't satisfy your need for meaning. It might even increase existential anxiety. Direct your attention outward to find things you can do right now to make a positive difference in the world. And do them. You might discover that the less time you have to think about meaning, the more meaningful your life becomes.
Have a great weekend!
Clay