You won't find the meaning of life without looking - these 3 things will get you closer
Finding meaning in your life could be more straightforward if you measured these 3 things, says psychologists.
People have always sought meaning in life. Philosophers from every century have debated it, and individuals from all walks of life have attempted to nourish it in their own way.
Depending on who you ask, the “meaning of life” can take on a variety of forms. Some point to fulfilling work, others point to happiness or relationships.
To many, lasting meaning usually requires sacrifice, or the overcoming of a challenge. Establishing meaning demands its pound of flesh. Usually it calls for discipline, and a little luck.
But maybe there’s a simpler way.
Finding meaning in your life could be more straightforward if you measured yourself across three specific dimensions, according to psychologists Frank Martela and Michael F. Streger.
As explained in the Journal of Positive Psychology (and as pointed out by Arthur C. Brooks), assessing coherence, purpose, and significance is how to determine the “amount” of meaning in your life.
Coherence, to begin with, is how things fit together in your life. Consider the narrative your life follows — do things make sense? Are the order of events random, or do they seem intentional?
High coherence means that you can usually explain the events in your life, as if they were supposed to be there, or that they make chronological or narrative sense.
Then comes purpose — your aspirations or goals. The stuff you’re aiming for. Do you hold a belief that you’re meant to do something with your life? Brooks said to think of this as a personal mission statement, as if you were a corporation that had to explain its values to customers.
What is the purpose of your existence? Maybe yours is to teach people something, or to invent a product for the betterment of others. Perhaps it's money or fame.
In any case, defining and then finding out how you can live out your own purpose is an integral piece to the “meaning” calculus.
Finally comes significance, or the notion that your life does in fact matter. Those with high significance, per the Journal of Positive Psychology, believe that life has inherent value, and that their own existence matters and holds import.
Their findings tell us the three pieces to a meaningful life are coherence, purpose, and significance. But naming them doesn’t mean we know how to find each of those components. Deriving meaning, even piece by piece, is no small task.
Start by coming to terms with who you are and what you value. By establishing your present parameters — how you measure your own life, self-worth, aspirations — you can better move forward and take action.
What is it that you find meaningful? What do you not care about? What part of your life seems especially abundant, or lacking?
Find out what’s ailing you and what gives you momentum. What is it that you do during which time seems to fly by? Those are probably meaningful activities. If you’re very lucky, your job is like that. Or perhaps you find school to be this way.
Start small and move out from there — the stuff you value most typically begets the “time-flies” sentiment because you love doing it.
From there, it's a matter of repetition. No one, I think, stumbles upon the meaning of life that quickly. And no one, I think, stumbles upon it without first trying to seek it out.
Any search for the meaning of life, of course, relies on the assumption that there even is such a thing.
Henry David Thoreau believed a meaningful life came from a simple existence, without material items, while being deeply connected to nature.
“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end,” wrote surgeon and author Atul Gawande in his book Being Mortal, which examines end-of-life care, and weighs the meaning of a comfortable death versus keeping a patient alive as long as possible.
The existentialists said it is your responsibility to create your own meaning in life, because nothing, necessarily, is inherent to the world we inhabit. As appealing as the “choose your own destiny” sound of that philosophy, I don’t entirely agree with it.
You can’t really test whether there’s meaning in life, because it’s not quite quantifiable and it can’t be squeezed into a test tube.
Nonetheless, the only way to inch closer to the answer is by beginning to look in the first place.
