Speaker 1: The defining feature of a meaningful life is connecting and
Speaker 1: contributing to something that lies beyond the self.
Speaker 2: Wow, welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 2: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think ring true, And yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. In
Speaker 2: case you're just recently joining us, or however long you've
Speaker 2: been a listener of the show, you may not realize
Speaker 2: that we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 2: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 2: decided handpick one of our favorites that may be new
Speaker 2: to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen.
Speaker 2: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Emily Esfahani Smith.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 2: Emilyesfahani Smith, author of the Power of Meaning, Crafting a
Speaker 2: Life That Matters. She graduated from Dartmouth College and earned
Speaker 2: a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Emily's writings about psychology, culture, and relationships have appeared in
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic,
Speaker 2: and other publications. Emily is also a columnist for The
Speaker 2: New Criterion, as well as an editor at the Stanford
Speaker 2: University's Hoover Institution.
Speaker 3: Hi, Emily, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Eric.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to have you on the show because your
Speaker 3: new book is called The Power of Meaning, Crafting the
Speaker 3: Life That Matters, and this topic has been on my
Speaker 3: mind a lot. Really, the role and the difference is
Speaker 3: between happiness and meaning and what that looks like. In
Speaker 3: your book spends a lot of time on that and
Speaker 3: then also goes through and talks about sort of what
Speaker 3: are the pillars of a meaningful life. So I'm really
Speaker 3: excited to get into that. But let's start like we
Speaker 3: always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 3: with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two
Speaker 3: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 3: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 3: bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 3: grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start all by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: So this parable reminds me of an assignment that I
Speaker 1: had when I was in high school, and the assignment
Speaker 1: was to take a position in the debate of whether
Speaker 1: human beings are inherently good or inherently evil. And I
Speaker 1: remember at the time thinking that it was an either
Speaker 1: or decision, that human beings were either good or evil,
Speaker 1: and that we had to kind of check the other
Speaker 1: instinct And in the year sense studying psychology, studying philosophy,
Speaker 1: and just living my own life and interviewing people for
Speaker 1: the things that I write, like this book, I've discovered
Speaker 1: that it's actually a lot more complicated than that, and
Speaker 1: that we do have these two pieces of us inside
Speaker 1: of us, and that so much of what becomes our
Speaker 1: reality is determined by what our mindset basically is about
Speaker 1: who we are. Are we that evil wolf or are
Speaker 1: we that good wolf? And which one do we want
Speaker 1: to bring to life. It's really a question I think
Speaker 1: of identity and how we want to define our identities,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: in my book actually, and so I think for me,
Speaker 1: what that parable has taught me is that human beings
Speaker 1: are so much more complicated than they're sometimes painted to be,
Speaker 1: and that we each have the choice to define our
Speaker 1: own identity by the mindset that we take, and we
Speaker 1: can choose to create a positive identity for ourselves by
Speaker 1: adopting a positive mindset about who we are and how
Speaker 1: we want our lives to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree that idea of whether we're good or
Speaker 3: bad I always think about because in the West, we've
Speaker 3: got Christianity, which tends to say, hey, original sin, you're bad.
Speaker 3: There's Buddhism, which says, hey, everybody underneath it all is
Speaker 3: this perfect diamond and you just need to uncover it.
Speaker 3: And I sort of land where you do, which is
Speaker 3: I think both are in there. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: think that's how we come and to your point, it's
Speaker 3: what do we do with it from that point.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and that we have the power to decide the
Speaker 1: kind of person that we want to be.
Speaker 3: Yep. So let's start off by talking about happiness versus
Speaker 3: meaning what's the difference.
Speaker 1: So these are two different approaches or paths you might say,
Speaker 1: to leading a good life, and you know, they've been
Speaker 1: recognized as two separate approaches for thousands of years in
Speaker 1: philosophy and now have been studied by positive psychology researchers
Speaker 1: as two different approaches to how we lead our lives.
Speaker 1: And happiness is defined as kind of a positive emotion,
Speaker 1: a positive mental state, and researchers have seen that it's
Speaker 1: associated with getting the things that you need and want,
Speaker 1: with being in good physical health, with leisure activities like
Speaker 1: sleeping in or playing games. And our culture, you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much out in our culture about how, you know,
Speaker 1: what are the ten steps to a happier life? How
Speaker 1: can we all be happier there's really kind of a
Speaker 1: zeitgeist around happyness. Meaning is different, and I'd like to
Speaker 1: think of it as bigger than happiness. The defining feature
Speaker 1: of a meaningful life is connecting and contributing to something
Speaker 1: that lies beyond the self, whether that's your family, your work, God, nature,
Speaker 1: just this idea that it's not about you, it's about
Speaker 1: something else that makes your life, gives your life purpose
Speaker 1: and gives it worth. And when people say that they
Speaker 1: have meaningful lives, it's because three criteria have been satisfied.
Speaker 1: One is that they feel that their lives are significant
Speaker 1: and have worth in some way. The second is that
Speaker 1: they feel their lives are driven by a sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: a goal that somehow contributes to the world. And finally,
Speaker 1: they feel their lives are coherent, which means that they
Speaker 1: understand their lives and their experiences part of some greater whole,
Speaker 1: a larger narrative, and not just as random and disconnected.
Speaker 3: And so in the book you reference, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I'm going to get his name right, but last
Speaker 3: name is Nosick.
Speaker 1: Yes, Robert Nozick.
Speaker 3: Yeah. A thought experiment he does that sort of lays
Speaker 3: out what the choice between these two look like, could
Speaker 3: you walk us through that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So one of the things that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do in my book is, as I mentioned earlier, that
Speaker 1: there's such a zeitgeist around happiness and so many people
Speaker 1: want to be happy. And that's understandable. It seems like
Speaker 1: just such an obvious thing that we all want to
Speaker 1: be happy. We want our children to be happy, our
Speaker 1: friends to be happy. But I think that if you
Speaker 1: push people a little bit and get them to think
Speaker 1: a little bit more deeply, that you'll see that what
Speaker 1: people actually want is to lead a meaningful life. Human
Speaker 1: beings are meaning seeking creatures and they always have been,
Speaker 1: and we all want to know that our lives are
Speaker 1: significant in the grand scheme of things, that they made
Speaker 1: a difference in the world. And so Robert Nozick was
Speaker 1: a flaw at Harvard, and to make this point, he
Speaker 1: kind of proposed what he called a thought experiment, and
Speaker 1: basically he said, to imagine that there is a machine
Speaker 1: that you could plug into that would give you all
Speaker 1: of the experiences, any experience that you could possibly want.
Speaker 1: You know, if you wanted to be happy for all
Speaker 1: the days of your life, just feel pleasure time after time,
Speaker 1: then you could do that, and he asks readers, you know,
Speaker 1: would you plug into this experience machine that could give
Speaker 1: you pleasure on ending pleasure and happiness? And most people,
Speaker 1: if they reflect on it, they probably wouldn't plug into
Speaker 1: the machine. And the reason is because you know, the
Speaker 1: happiness that you feel there is not really earned. That
Speaker 1: the life that you would lead, such as it is,
Speaker 1: isn't really a life at all. You're just kind of
Speaker 1: experiencing feelings, but you're not doing anything that's of worth
Speaker 1: and of significance. And so this was Nosic's way of saying,
Speaker 1: and I quote, there's more to life than feeling happy.
Speaker 1: People don't just want to feel happy, They want their
Speaker 1: lives to amount to something more. And so that's the
Speaker 1: idea that we take away from the Experienced Machine thought experiment.
Speaker 3: I love that thought experiment. I think it's a fascinating
Speaker 3: way to think through you know, happiness and meaning, like
Speaker 3: what are you striving for? Elsewhere in the book you
Speaker 3: talk about historian and philosopher Will Durant and an old
Speaker 3: story that just cracked me up when I heard it,
Speaker 3: which is that the old story of a police officer
Speaker 3: who attempted to stop a suicidal man from jumping off
Speaker 3: a bridge. The two talked, then they both jumped off
Speaker 3: the ledge, and Durant goes on to say, this is
Speaker 3: the past to which science and philosophy have brought us.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think that a lot of
Speaker 3: the book you're talking about, and we talk about it
Speaker 3: on the show a lot about how our current culture
Speaker 3: does not really emphasize meaning and purpose, how a lot
Speaker 3: of the ways that people used to get meaning and
Speaker 3: purpose have gone away or are less relevant to a
Speaker 3: lot of people, and so we kind of have to
Speaker 3: find our own purpose. And you reference in the book
Speaker 3: one of my very favorite books ever, which is Man's
Speaker 3: Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. Can you just tell
Speaker 3: us briefly about Victor Frankel and kind of what his
Speaker 3: contribution to this discussion is.
Speaker 1: Victor Frankel was a Holocaust survivor and a psychiatrist from Vienna,
Speaker 1: and when he was transported to the concentration camps during
Speaker 1: World War Two, he spent a lot of time observing
Speaker 1: the other inmates in the camps and the fact that
Speaker 1: some of them quickly fell into despair and lost hope
Speaker 1: about their situation, which obviously was a terrible situation. Everything
Speaker 1: had been deprived of them, you know, their identities, their freedom,
Speaker 1: their dignity. And yet in the midst of that, there
Speaker 1: were some who did not lose hope and who did
Speaker 1: not fall into despair. And Frankel wanted to understand why
Speaker 1: that was. And as he observed more and more inmates,
Speaker 1: and as he spoke to inmates, he concluded that the
Speaker 1: difference between the people who ultimately were more resilient to
Speaker 1: their adversity and those who succumb to it was meaning.
Speaker 1: And you know, he tells the story of a couple
Speaker 1: of suicidal inmates in the camps who had lost hope,
Speaker 1: and by reminding them what their meaning and purpose in
Speaker 1: life was, Franko was able to kind of zap their
Speaker 1: vitality back into them. And so for one of them
Speaker 1: it was his son who was still alive and would
Speaker 1: be waiting for him after the war, and for the
Speaker 1: other a scientist, it was a set of books that
Speaker 1: he needed to complete. And so the idea really is that,
Speaker 1: you know, each of us have kind of a unique
Speaker 1: meaning or purpose in life, and that but constantly keeping
Speaker 1: it in our minds and setting it as a star
Speaker 1: that leads us forward, that not only will it our
Speaker 1: lives be richer, but that we can whether even the
Speaker 1: most horrendous adversities through living our meaning and purpose.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other thing I found fascinating in your book
Speaker 3: that I just don't remember whether I've heard it before
Speaker 3: or not, was that Frankel chose he had the opportunity
Speaker 3: to leave shortly before his family was taken to the
Speaker 3: concentration camps. He could have come to America, and he
Speaker 3: chose not to stay to be there with his family,
Speaker 3: which I thought was a pretty remarkable thing.
Speaker 1: That's right, And it was certainly an agonizing decision for him,
Speaker 1: because he could flee to safety, he could go to America,
Speaker 1: lead a life of ease and comfort, continue his career,
Speaker 1: which by that point had been remarkably successful and would
Speaker 1: promise to be only more successful in America. But he
Speaker 1: decided that it was his duty and his responsibility to
Speaker 1: stay to help his parents adjust to camp life, basically.
Speaker 1: And I think that I love that story because it
Speaker 1: highlights another point that runs through Frankel's writing. He wrote
Speaker 1: Man Search for Meaning about his experiences and the concentration camps,
Speaker 1: and he writes about how responsibility and duty are kind
Speaker 1: of our well springs of meaning and how the things
Speaker 1: that we have a duty to complete and a responsibility
Speaker 1: to do may not always make us happy, but that
Speaker 1: they're the right thing to do, and that they can
Speaker 1: make our lives feel more meaningful.
Speaker 3: We all know that good habits are ways that we
Speaker 3: bring what we value into the world, and we each
Speaker 3: have our own list of what matters to us. Maybe
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Speaker 3: Go to one you feed dot net slash habits. So
Speaker 3: that theme runs through the book, this idea of duty
Speaker 3: and responsibility. Yet I know an awful lot of people
Speaker 3: who have duty and responsibility and seem to resent it
Speaker 3: or it doesn't feel meaningful of them. It feels like
Speaker 3: a big ball and chain. How do people turn that around?
Speaker 1: Well, I think what you're describing is kind of motivated
Speaker 1: me in a lot of ways to write this book.
Speaker 1: There are millions of people who are unsure that their
Speaker 1: lives have meaning. I'm clear that their lives have meaning.
Speaker 1: They're kind of going through the day to day motions,
Speaker 1: going to work, you know, picking their kids up from school,
Speaker 1: and they kind of feel like they're on autopilot and
Speaker 1: they're unsure whether their lives are significant in any way.
Speaker 1: And what I found in my research and in talking
Speaker 1: to all kinds of individuals about their own journeys to
Speaker 1: a meaningful life was that the wellsprings of meaning are
Speaker 1: all around us, and you don't have to be curing
Speaker 1: cancer or writing the Great American Novel to be leading
Speaker 1: a meaningful life. You can be a clerk at a store.
Speaker 1: You can be a stay at home mom or dad.
Speaker 1: You can be a regular scientist and still have a
Speaker 1: life that's rich with meaning by relying on and leaning
Speaker 1: on what I call the four pillars of a meaningful
Speaker 1: life and These are the four sources I argue of
Speaker 1: a meaningful life, which are belonging, purpose, storytelling, and transcendence.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: them later, but the basic idea is that, you know,
Speaker 1: we just have to we have to reframe our attitude
Speaker 1: towards our own lives and realize that, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we won't be recognized by the history books and immortalized
Speaker 1: by them, but that simply by connecting to others, by
Speaker 1: serving others, by loving and contributing, that we could still
Speaker 1: lead lives that are very rich with meaning.
Speaker 3: I agree. I think our culture also makes that more
Speaker 3: difficult for us, given the way the celebrity culture is,
Speaker 3: and that so many people think that, like you said,
Speaker 3: it has to be this huge, big thing. I always
Speaker 3: think it's interesting because when you start to put things
Speaker 3: into the grand scope of things, you might look at
Speaker 3: like a rock band that's touring the country right now
Speaker 3: that's relatively successful and think, well, that's meaning, Like he's
Speaker 3: writing songs that's influencing lots of people. But if you
Speaker 3: look one level up from that, you're like, well, no,
Speaker 3: he won't be remembered. I mean, it's it becomes this,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter where you land on that scale. I
Speaker 3: think between, you know, between being somebody who might leave
Speaker 3: a small mark in history and somebody who doesn't. In
Speaker 3: the grand scheme of things, you can either look up
Speaker 3: at you know, how unimportant your life is, or you
Speaker 3: can look at where you are. I guess what I'm
Speaker 3: trying to say is, no matter where you are, if
Speaker 3: you're taking a comparing mindset, you kind of feel like
Speaker 3: you fall short.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's right. And it reminds me of
Speaker 1: a Calvin and Hobbes comic actually, which I saw, my
Speaker 1: favorite right, which I was looking at just the other day.
Speaker 1: And Calvin is kind of, you know, staring there with
Speaker 1: his arms outstretched to the sky, looking at the stars
Speaker 1: and bewailing his cosmic insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: And I think that all of us, you know, when
Speaker 1: we take the very big picture of our lives in
Speaker 1: the universe, are so tiny by comparison, and yet at
Speaker 1: the same time, we each have a network of people
Speaker 1: whose lives we can influence, and our small acts can
Speaker 1: make a big difference in their lives. And so keeping
Speaker 1: keeping that in mind as well, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: In my chapter on Purpose, I quote the novelist George Elliott,
Speaker 1: who pays a tribute to the people who kind of
Speaker 1: keep the world going in small yet indispensable ways, and
Speaker 1: she says that you know, the goodness of the world
Speaker 1: is dependent on their unhistoric acts, and that you know,
Speaker 1: these were people who rest in unvisited tombs, but the
Speaker 1: fact that they were doing what they were doing has
Speaker 1: made the world a better place and the more peaceful
Speaker 1: place has kept it moving forward in some way.
Speaker 3: I agree with that totally, and I think that this
Speaker 3: meaning thing for me. The more I've thought about it,
Speaker 3: I've realized it's not something that I can get to intellectually.
Speaker 3: Your four pillars sort of talk towards that. But when
Speaker 3: I intellectually try and do it, and I go, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: my meaning is to help my son. And then if
Speaker 3: I follow that thing, I go, well, but what does
Speaker 3: that really matter because he's going to die too, well,
Speaker 3: it's going to Intellectually I can never get there, right.
Speaker 3: But the example I've used recently a couple of times is,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, if I walked out my front
Speaker 3: door and there was a dog laying there suffering, there's
Speaker 3: nothing you could do that would convince me that that
Speaker 3: didn't matter. No intellectual argument you gave me, no existentialism
Speaker 3: or nihilism or anything would make me not believe that
Speaker 3: helping that dog wasn't incredibly important. Yeah, and for me,
Speaker 3: I can't get there through my mind.
Speaker 1: I think that's one hundred percent correct. And I mean
Speaker 1: Aristotle said that the flourishing life is an active life,
Speaker 1: so life in which you're doing things. And I think
Speaker 1: I remember one of my one of my professors in
Speaker 1: graduate school, the great psychologist Martin Seligman, said that one
Speaker 1: of the greatest cures that you could give someone who's
Speaker 1: feeling depressed is to tell them to go out and volunteer.
Speaker 1: And I think that that speaks to this point that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, which is that we may try to
Speaker 1: overanalyze and over intellectualize, you know, whether life is meaningful,
Speaker 1: whether our lives are meaningful. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we have it in our power to do
Speaker 1: specific things that can improve the world in some and
Speaker 1: so long as we're doing that, our lives will feel
Speaker 1: more meaningful to us.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I come from twelve step tradition. You know, I'm a
Speaker 3: recovering alcoholic connect and so I spent a lot of
Speaker 3: years in that program, and right at the very heart
Speaker 3: of that program is that idea of you need to
Speaker 3: help other people. Right, that's right at the center of it.
Speaker 3: And it's obvious, you know, kind of why. It makes
Speaker 3: a lot of sense, and it you know now that
Speaker 3: I was looking at your four pillars of meaning, I
Speaker 3: was thinking about how a lot of that is fulfilled
Speaker 3: within a twelve step program. There's the belonging from being there.
Speaker 3: There's the purpose, which is to help others. There's the
Speaker 3: storytelling where everybody tells their story. There's a connection to
Speaker 3: something bigger than yourself. I find it interesting. I have
Speaker 3: things about the twelve step programs I like and things
Speaker 3: I don't, but it's interesting to see it in this frame.
Speaker 3: So let's talk through the four pillars. Then let's start
Speaker 3: with belonging.
Speaker 1: Well, to take a step back, I think it seems
Speaker 1: pretty obvious that in any kind of definition of a
Speaker 1: good life, a meaningful life, that relationships would play an
Speaker 1: important role in that. You know, there's so much research
Speaker 1: out there about how relationships are important for happiness, and
Speaker 1: one would expect that they would also be important for meaning.
Speaker 1: But what I'm trying to say is that it's not
Speaker 1: just relationships that are important, but a very specific type
Speaker 1: of relationship, one that's defined by a sense of belonging
Speaker 1: on both sides. And so what is belonging. Belonging is basically,
Speaker 1: you know, mutual care, mutual respect when two people come
Speaker 1: together and let each other know tacitly and explicitly that
Speaker 1: they value each other and that both both people matter
Speaker 1: to the to the other. So you know, when when
Speaker 1: other people treat you like you matter, you feel your
Speaker 1: life matters too, and so you can see why it
Speaker 1: would be important to a meaningful life. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the abstract definition. But if you get
Speaker 1: a little bit more concrete when you ask people, you know,
Speaker 1: what are your primary sources of meaning in life? Again
Speaker 1: and again they say they're close relationships, And parents in
Speaker 1: particular say, there, you know, their relationship chips to their children.
Speaker 1: Having kids is one of the most potent forms of
Speaker 1: meaning that people can achieve. But you know, I talk
Speaker 1: about this in my book. Close relationships obviously are great
Speaker 1: wellsprings of belonging, but you can also experience belonging through
Speaker 1: more ordinary and small connections with people, whether it's smiling
Speaker 1: at someone who's passing on the street, just acknowledging one another,
Speaker 1: making eye contact, connecting for that brief moment, or having
Speaker 1: a conversation with the barista at the coffee shop or
Speaker 1: the person who's cleaning your office. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: belonging can happen in big and small ways since we
Speaker 1: can find opportunities to cultivate it.
Speaker 3: Excellent. So let's now talk about the next piece, which
Speaker 3: is purpose. And we've kind of alluded to this a
Speaker 3: little bit, but maybe you could take us a little
Speaker 3: deeper into it.
Speaker 1: Let me just first say that meaning and purpose are
Speaker 1: terms that are sometimes used interchangeably. So somebody might say,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the meaning and purpose of my
Speaker 1: life is, or my life feels like it has meaning
Speaker 1: and purpose, and they're obviously related. However they're distinct. And
Speaker 1: purpose is a goal, kind of a long term goal
Speaker 1: that we're always working towards that organizes everything else that
Speaker 1: we do, and most often it involves making a contribution
Speaker 1: to others or to the world in some way. And
Speaker 1: as we were talking about earlier, you know, meaning and
Speaker 1: purpose can sound so big and like we have to
Speaker 1: accomplish something very grand in order to count our lives
Speaker 1: as meaningful or in order to have said, well, I
Speaker 1: have found my purpose. But the research shows that purpose
Speaker 1: can come in all shapes and sizes. So, for example,
Speaker 1: you know, you may be an educator who's working to
Speaker 1: eliminate the achievement gap and find purpose in doing that,
Speaker 1: and that would be an example of kind of a
Speaker 1: larger purpose or goal that drives you. Or you could
Speaker 1: be a cleaner at a hospital who sees your purpose
Speaker 1: as help being the children and the patients there recover
Speaker 1: more quickly heal more quickly by keeping the hospital as
Speaker 1: clean as possible. So it can come in all shapes
Speaker 1: and sizes, and I think it's important to remember that
Speaker 1: because otherwise we might get discouraged and thinking, well, I
Speaker 1: haven't found my capital P purpose. I don't really feel
Speaker 1: like my life has a calling. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who feel that way. And if you do,
Speaker 1: that's fine. Just because you don't have a capital P
Speaker 1: purpose or a capital C calling doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: can't find purpose in kind of the ordinary acts of
Speaker 1: daily life. And one of my favorite examples is a
Speaker 1: study of adolescence which found that when they contributed to
Speaker 1: the household in some way by doing chores or watching
Speaker 1: their younger siblings that they felt a stronger sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: and the reason was because they felt like they were
Speaker 1: contributing to the smooth operation of the household.
Speaker 3: Basically, the teenagers around me do not seem to echo this. Fine,
Speaker 3: they're not letting on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we know. Sometimes it's just about framing, So maybe
Speaker 1: you could help them reframe it.
Speaker 3: Exactly as you were saying that the idea of a
Speaker 3: big purpose and all that I think is elusive for
Speaker 3: a lot of people. I also think it changes a lot,
Speaker 3: at least for me it has. I mean, there's been
Speaker 3: a purpose for a particular period of time more specifically,
Speaker 3: but sometimes I think a purpose that can be sufficient
Speaker 3: is just simply to leave every place I go, every interaction,
Speaker 3: I have everything I do a little bit better than
Speaker 3: it was before I got there. And that's a pretty
Speaker 3: all purpose purpose. I suppose you could say, I.
Speaker 1: Think that's absolutely right. That's a purpose that can kind
Speaker 1: of everything that you do can fall under it. And
Speaker 1: I love your point, Eric about how purpose can change
Speaker 1: throughout the course of our lives. That that's so true,
Speaker 1: and it's so important to remember that because we need
Speaker 1: to be nimble purpose seekers. I think and realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, when one stage of life is over it
Speaker 1: that might mean that one source of purpose has gone away,
Speaker 1: but we can still find purpose in other ways, and
Speaker 1: we should look for it.
Speaker 3: Let's move on to storytelling. I found this one particularly fascinating.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, it's fun that you say that, because
Speaker 1: it was kind of the most unexpected pillar in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. I had an intuition that storytelling should
Speaker 1: somehow be involved, but it was the most elusive pillar
Speaker 1: for me to kind of wrap my arms around. But
Speaker 1: when I did, it just became very clear the role
Speaker 1: that it plays in a meaningful life. And this goes
Speaker 1: back to what I was talking about earlier, which is
Speaker 1: the idea that people, when they say their lives are meaningful,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons is because they feel that their
Speaker 1: lives are coherent, which is to say that they kind
Speaker 1: of understand their experiences and the world that they live
Speaker 1: in in terms of a broader narrative, and in particular
Speaker 1: when it comes to their own lives, they've told a
Speaker 1: story about their lives that explains who they are, where
Speaker 1: they came from, where they're going, and why they do
Speaker 1: the things that they do. So it's really about kind
Speaker 1: of putting the pieces of the puzzle together to get
Speaker 1: something bigger. And you know, storytelling is so essential to humans.
Speaker 1: It's part of our DNA, So it's part of our brains.
Speaker 1: We're storytelling creatures, and we're kind of doing it all
Speaker 1: the time, maybe without realizing it. And I think that
Speaker 1: if we were a little bit more intentional about, you know,
Speaker 1: reflecting on our past experiences and trying to understand how
Speaker 1: they shaped us, that we would have a better sense
Speaker 1: of who we are and also a greater sense of
Speaker 1: meaning in our lives because again, it would just help
Speaker 1: our sense of coherence about who we are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you talk about two types of stories, of
Speaker 3: redemptive story and a contamination story. Yes.
Speaker 1: So. Dan McAdams is a psychologist at Northwestern University and
Speaker 1: he's one of the leading figures in this field called
Speaker 1: narrative psychology, which is basically about, you know, how we
Speaker 1: tell our life stories and the significance that it has.
Speaker 1: And nag Adams has found that there are a number
Speaker 1: of different types of stories that people can tell about
Speaker 1: their lives. You know, they're defined by different themes. So
Speaker 1: maybe you tell a story about your life that's kind
Speaker 1: of defined by growth and love. Maybe I tell a
Speaker 1: story about my life that's defined by loss and tragedy.
Speaker 1: So one of the types of stories is a redemption story,
Speaker 1: which is a story that moves from from bad to good.
Speaker 1: Redemption stories are all over literature. You know, in the
Speaker 1: Old Testament, the story of the Jews is a redemption story.
Speaker 1: In American history, the story of African Americans, you know,
Speaker 1: moving from slavery to freedom, that's a redemption story. So
Speaker 1: these stories are everywhere, And mcgaddams has found that the
Speaker 1: type of people who are most likely to contribute to
Speaker 1: society all tell very similar types of stories about their lives,
Speaker 1: and those stories are redemptive stories. So if you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person who see your life as moving from
Speaker 1: from bad to good, who see yourself as kind of
Speaker 1: overcoming tragedy and adversity and being stronger afterwards, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to contribute to society in a variety of different ways,
Speaker 1: such as by you know, giving back to younger generations.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty interesting because it suggests to us that
Speaker 1: the story that we tell about our lives can affect
Speaker 1: how we behave in our lives and how we understand
Speaker 1: our role in society. And the other thing that I
Speaker 1: want to say about stories is that you know, we're
Speaker 1: not doomed to tell one type of story about our lives.
Speaker 1: So if you're telling, let's say, a contamination story, which
Speaker 1: is the opposite of a redemptive story, a story that
Speaker 1: moves from good to bad, you're not stuck telling that story.
Speaker 1: You can edit your story, and you can retell it
Speaker 1: and reframe it and reinterpret it in a way that
Speaker 1: brings you a positive sense of meaning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a story, after all, right, you know
Speaker 3: it is a story. Now. What I found fascinating about
Speaker 3: this idea was on the show, we talk a lot
Speaker 3: about the idea that we become great not in spite
Speaker 3: of our problems, but because of them in a lot
Speaker 3: of cases. And yet that doesn't happen for everybody. Right,
Speaker 3: some people are able to take these terrible experiences and
Speaker 3: transmute them into something powerful and good, and other people
Speaker 3: get broken by them. And I loved how you say
Speaker 3: in the book that sense making a narrative are thus
Speaker 3: effective ways to make meaning from trauma and ultimately overcome it.
Speaker 3: Venting raw emotions and falling back on platitudes does not
Speaker 3: lead to health benefits, but sustained and thoughtful writing does.
Speaker 3: It helps us move beyond our initial emotional reactions to
Speaker 3: something deeper.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, we can't control whether bad
Speaker 1: things will happen to us, but we can control how
Speaker 1: we respond to them. And what's interesting is that the
Speaker 1: more willing you are to do the hard work of
Speaker 1: sitting down and reflecting on those difficult experiences, writing about
Speaker 1: how those experiences affected you, actively trying to make sense
Speaker 1: of them, the more likely you are to kind of
Speaker 1: overcome those experiences in a positive way. So this meaning
Speaker 1: making process is kind of restorative for people after adversities,
Speaker 1: and I think it makes sense. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: when you sit there and you try to reflect on
Speaker 1: why this thing happened, how did it affect me, you're
Speaker 1: getting some peace enclosure, a little bit of peace and
Speaker 1: closure anyways, and that kind of helps you move forward
Speaker 1: in a healthier manner.
Speaker 3: So let's go to the last of the pillars, which
Speaker 3: is transcendence. And this can come in a lot of
Speaker 3: different Flavorsance.
Speaker 1: Is basically about connecting to something that is far greater
Speaker 1: than you are. The word transcend means to kind of
Speaker 1: to go beyond, to step outside the ordinary realm of
Speaker 1: experiences and feel something higher, something more sacred. And this
Speaker 1: is the pillar that gave rise to religious experiences. That
Speaker 1: is central to religious experiences, religious rituals like meditation or
Speaker 1: chanting or singing and praying together. But it's also a
Speaker 1: pillar that we can build through experiences in nature or
Speaker 1: by encountering great art or great music. And the common
Speaker 1: denominator is that we're somehow lifted above the ordinary realm
Speaker 1: of waking experiences and experience of reality that's higher, and
Speaker 1: that allows us to see the world anew and to
Speaker 1: gain a sense of clarity. When you speak to people
Speaker 1: who've had transcendent experience, is they talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: how they're kind of mountaintop experiences and how when they
Speaker 1: come back down from the mountain that they're changed in
Speaker 1: some way, that their perspective on reality is a little
Speaker 1: bit different, and that they feel a little more at
Speaker 1: peace with their lives. Actually, So you know, I know,
Speaker 1: earlier Eric, we were talking about how we can feel
Speaker 1: so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and transcendent
Speaker 1: experiences can definitely amplify that feeling because you realize that
Speaker 1: you're just a tiny speck in this vast ocean of
Speaker 1: the universe. And yet the paradoxical thing about transcendent experiences
Speaker 1: is that even though you realize your own smallness, you're
Speaker 1: not left feeling with a sense of despair. Afterwards, You're
Speaker 1: left feeling with a sense of peace because you even
Speaker 1: though you are so small, you also realize that you
Speaker 1: are connected to something vast and something incomprehensible, whether you
Speaker 1: want to call that, you know, the world, nature, consciousness,
Speaker 1: all reality, God, what have you. It's this larger thing
Speaker 1: that we're all a part of.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the other point there is that we
Speaker 3: tend to think of transcendent experiences as these really overwhelming experiences,
Speaker 3: you know, transcendent with a capital T is that And
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us though in that when
Speaker 3: we don't have that sort of thing, either we're searching
Speaker 3: for it all the time through these practices, or we
Speaker 3: dismiss it. And you know, William James, who wrote you Know,
Speaker 3: Varieties of Religious Experience, talks about a spiritual awakening that
Speaker 3: happens over a period of time instead of the bam,
Speaker 3: one moment, you know, one that's a lot more progressive.
Speaker 3: And so I think things like nature and art and music,
Speaker 3: even if it's not this one overwhelming moment, I think
Speaker 3: there's a cumulative effective turning towards those things as a
Speaker 3: source of bringing us up and out of the world
Speaker 3: that is valuable.
Speaker 1: Also, the more we're able to recognize those small, kind
Speaker 1: of micro moments of transcendence, the more we'll experience them
Speaker 1: and build this pillar in our lives. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: feasibly you could take a walk, you know, to your
Speaker 1: car and just be outside and see the trees and see,
Speaker 1: you know, a caterpillar crawling across the sidewalk and feel
Speaker 1: on and feel you know, the beauty of the universe
Speaker 1: and the fact that you're alive and you're here, and
Speaker 1: just the wonder of it all. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: opportunities to experience this pillar every.
Speaker 3: Day, Yes there are. So we're near wrapping up, but
Speaker 3: I wanted to wrap up by talking about some things
Speaker 3: you say near the end, about what's happening to us
Speaker 3: maybe as a species. And I think this is a
Speaker 3: time where a lot of people could use, you know,
Speaker 3: a little bit more. Hope you reference to writers who
Speaker 3: say something you know one of them. Easterbrooks says, a
Speaker 3: transition from material want to meaning want is in progress
Speaker 3: on a historically unprecedented scale. Yes, And then you also
Speaker 3: quote the economist Robert Fogel who says that we're in
Speaker 3: the middle of a fourth grade awakening, which is defined
Speaker 3: by an interest in spiritual concerns like purpose, knowledge, and
Speaker 3: community over material ones like money and consumer goods. In
Speaker 3: the writing of the book, did you come away feeling that? Also?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, It's been one of the most powerful takeaways in
Speaker 1: writing this book, the fact that there is this shift
Speaker 1: that's happening across society and that sociologists have measured, economists
Speaker 1: have measured, journalists have reported on that people are really
Speaker 1: interested in meaning, institutions are really interested in bringing meaning
Speaker 1: to people. This is a really positive development. It's a
Speaker 1: way to kind of make our culture a little bit
Speaker 1: more humane. And in my book I specifically talk about
Speaker 1: it in terms of what I call cultures of meaning
Speaker 1: that different organizations are creating. And you just see this
Speaker 1: ground swell, this interest in you. How can we help
Speaker 1: other people lead more meaningful lives? How can we help
Speaker 1: them identify their values and their mission? From public policy
Speaker 1: to educational institutions to corporations, at every level of society,
Speaker 1: there seems to be this new found interest in meaning,
Speaker 1: and I think that I think that it's really helpful,
Speaker 1: you know, for reasons that you alluded to the fact
Speaker 1: that there's so much negativity out there right now, and
Speaker 1: yet there are you know, one of the counterpoints to
Speaker 1: all of that negativity is the fact that people really
Speaker 1: are engaged with the question of how we can all
Speaker 1: lead more meaningful lives and how we can help one
Speaker 1: another lead more meaningful lives. And I think it also
Speaker 1: it makes sense that this moment is happening in our
Speaker 1: culture right now when so many of the traditional forms
Speaker 1: of meaning that we've relied on as a species, like
Speaker 1: religion and community are kind of dissolving, and people are
Speaker 1: looking for new ways to satisfy their yearning for meaning,
Speaker 1: and it's great that these institutions have risen up to
Speaker 1: help satisfy it. There's also, you know, a dark side
Speaker 1: to it as well. Just as there are many positive
Speaker 1: cultures of meaning, there are also many evil and destructive ones,
Speaker 1: such as you know, isis and hate groups and gangs,
Speaker 1: and so I think that there is there is an
Speaker 1: imperative on our culture and on each one of us
Speaker 1: to provide kind of positive and generative alternatives to those
Speaker 1: evil cultures of meaning so that people don't have to
Speaker 1: turn to them to feel that their lives have worth
Speaker 1: and significance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I find that whole idea of us heading towards
Speaker 3: that fascinating. I'm sort of a believer in like the
Speaker 3: middle way with a lot of things, and it seems
Speaker 3: to me like there was a necessary time where personal
Speaker 3: freedom and individualism and you know, being our own selves
Speaker 3: was critical to break out of a particularly maybe tribal
Speaker 3: mindset where where people were really sort of locked in.
Speaker 3: But it feels like it is typical of a lot
Speaker 3: of change that I see is the pendulum swung back.
Speaker 3: It's sort of overswung to the other side where we
Speaker 3: now we've got so much of those things, the individualism
Speaker 3: and the freedom of choice and all that that now
Speaker 3: it's maybe starting to swing its way back to the middle,
Speaker 3: which is a which is an area between those two
Speaker 3: extremes that allows us to be ourselves and who we
Speaker 3: are and also belong and have meaning at the same time.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be one or the other.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense.
Speaker 3: Well, Emily, thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 3: to come on. I really enjoyed reading the book. It
Speaker 3: was a great read, lots of different things in it.
Speaker 3: We only covered a small part of the great stories
Speaker 3: and anecdotes and research studies and all that that's in there,
Speaker 3: so it was very well done. Thank you, and again
Speaker 3: thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Eric, it was great speaking to you.
Speaker 4: Okay, take care, take care, bye bye bye.
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