How to live a meaningful life: 4 expert tips, from purpose to mattering, and how finding meaning in life can enhance mental resilience
- Psychology professor and popular YouTuber John Vervaeke says purpose, coherence, significance and mattering are key to having a truly meaningful existence
- November’s Movember movement raises awareness of men’s health and serves as a reminder that more than three-quarters of global suicides are by men
It’s November, the month in which the Movember movement raises awareness of men’s physical and mental health issues.
We are reminded that, across the world, about 77 per cent of suicides are by men.
With fewer coping mechanisms than women and weak support networks, men are more vulnerable and easily overwhelmed by feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Many men live lives devoid of meaning.
Meaning is powerful and a perceived lack of it can have serious negative effects on a person’s health.
A recent study by researchers at McGill University and the University of British Columbia, both in Canada, examined the connection between the presence of meaning in life and mental health difficulties among men.
The study, in which 364 men took part, concluded that those men who reported having a greater sense of meaning in their lives were considerably less likely to have symptoms of depression, anxiety and despair.
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What’s more, a greater sense of meaning was seen to enhance mental resilience and lessen loneliness.
Of all the intellectuals dedicated to helping people find meaning in this world, John Vervaeke, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, is among the most popular, with more than 100,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.
He recently spoke at HowTheLightGetsIn London 2023, the world’s largest philosophy and music festival.
Vervaeke, an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto in Canada, and director of its cognitive science programme, has dedicated an inordinate amount of time to exploring what makes a life meaningful – and meaningless.
Vervaeke’s work includes topics such as human intelligence, rationality, wisdom and AI. It includes a 50-part lecture series on YouTube called “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”, consisting of challenging, hour-long sessions some of which have attracted hundreds of thousands of views.
Rather than focus on the meaning of life, the scientific but spiritual philosopher prefers to focus on meaning in life.
A meaningful life, he suggests, involves finding the strength and courage to persevere “in the full face of all the frustrations, frailties, foolishness, faults and failures that human life is beset by”.
The question of “what makes your life worth living?” he notes, “carries with it the proposal that there are lives that are not worth living”.
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Vervaeke says there are four things to focus on to have a truly meaningful existence, outlined below.
The four factors of a meaningful life
1. Purpose
One of the things that gives our lives a sense of meaning is purpose, Vervaeke says.
But meaning and purpose are not the same, he stresses.
“Meaning” relates to the emotional significance of our actions, thoughts and behaviours, while purpose focuses more on the actions we take to make meaningful goals a reality, he says.
“One’s purpose isn’t just a single goal that one is undertaking,” he says. “It’s sort of the ultimate goal that organises all the other goal-directed behaviours.”
2. Coherence
Coherence “means your world is intelligible in such a way that it doesn’t strike you as absurd, that there’s a fundamental way in which it makes sense,” Vervaeke says.
This allows you to interact with the world in ways that make sense to both you and the people you interact with. Without a consistent, coherent “script” to read from, it becomes increasingly difficult to live a meaningful existence.
3. Significance
“We want to preserve, promote and protect things that have deep value and that are genuinely real, not illusory,” Vervaeke says. In other words, they have significance.
These “things” can come in many forms, from artistic projects to starting a family. They must matter not just to us, but to others as well.
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In 1967, Peter Berger, a philosopher and writer Vervaeke regularly references, discussed something called the “sacred canopy”, the idea that all healthy human societies build a sort of shield that protects them from the absurdities – and even the meaninglessness – of life.
Sacred, in this context, doesn’t mean religious. It simply means something we, as a broader collective, hold dear.
4. To matter
This fourth factor, Vervaeke says, is the most important of them all.
The other three are in service of this overarching factor: we all want to matter.
“We want to be connected to something that has value beyond our egocentric concerns,” he says.
It’s pretty easy to find out what matters to you, he adds. Just ask yourself these two questions: what do you want in the world to exist – even if you yourself don’t? And how much of a difference do you make, on a daily basis, to ensuring that it exists after you expire?
This ties in with the work of Susan Wolf, another philosopher who has dedicated much of her academic career to exploring the idea of meaning.
In 2010, she suggested that meaning “arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way”.
“Essentially, the idea is that a person’s life can be meaningful only if she cares fairly deeply about something or things, only if she is gripped, excited, interested, engaged, or … if she loves something,” Wolf says.
The key takeaway is this: what gives meaning to our lives gives us reasons to live, even when we do not care much, for our own sake, whether we live or die.
If you have suicidal thoughts or know someone who is experiencing them, help is available. In Hong Kong, dial +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services.
