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Emily Esfahani Smith

The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness Paperback – September 5, 2017

by Emily Esfahani Smith (Author)

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In a culture obsessed with happiness, this wise, stirring book points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life.

Too many of us believe that the search for meaning is an esoteric pursuit—that you have to travel to a distant monastery or page through dusty volumes to discover life’s secrets. The truth is, there are untapped sources of meaning all around us—right here, right now.

To explore how we can craft lives of meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith synthesizes a kaleidoscopic array of sources—from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists to figures in literature and history such as George Eliot, Viktor Frankl, Aristotle, and the Buddha. Drawing on this research, Smith shows us how cultivating connections to others, identifying and working toward a purpose, telling stories about our place in the world, and seeking out mystery can immeasurably deepen our lives.

To bring what she calls the four pillars of meaning to life, Smith visits a tight-knit fishing village in the Chesapeake Bay, stargazes in West Texas, attends a dinner where young people gather to share their experiences of profound loss, and more. She also introduces us to compelling seekers of meaning—from the drug kingpin who finds his purpose in helping people get fit to the artist who draws on her Hindu upbringing to create arresting photographs. And she explores how we might begin to build a culture that leaves space for introspection and awe, cultivates a sense of community, and imbues our lives with meaning.

Inspiring and story-driven, The Power of Meaning will strike a profound chord in anyone seeking a life that matters.

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320 pages
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English
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Crown
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September 5, 2017
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5.2 x 0.67 x 7.96 inches
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0553446568
ISBN-13

978-0553446562
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Beautifully written and rigorously researched, The Power of Meaning speaks to the yearning we all share for a life of depth and significance. In a culture constantly shouting about happiness, this warm and wise book leads us down the path to what truly matters. Reading it is a life-transforming experience.”—Susan Cain, author of Quiet

“The analysis that opens the book, and that structures the whole, is simple and elegant… The insight that, in our daily lives, we need to think of others and to have goals that include caring for others or working for something other than our own prosperity and advancement is the most valuable message in the book.”—The Wall Street Journal

“A riveting read on the quest for the one thing that matters more than happiness. Emily Esfahani Smith reveals why we lose meaning in our lives and how to find it. Beautifully written, evidence-based, and inspiring, this is a book I’ve been awaiting for a very long time.”—Adam Grant, author of Originals and Give and Take; professor at the Wharton School

“From sleep-deprived teens to overworked professionals, Americans are suffering from an epidemic of stress and exhaustion. It’s clear our definition of success is broken. As Emily Esfahani Smith shows, only by finding our purpose and opening ourselves to life's mystery can we find true well being. Combining cutting-edge research with storytelling, The Power of Meaning inspires us to zero in on what really matters.”—Arianna Huffington

“An enlightening guide to discovering meaning in one’s life . . . Smith persuasively reshapes the reader’s understanding of what constitutes a well-lived life.”—Publishers Weekly

“Thoughtful . . . Underscoring the power of connection, the author assures readers that finding meaning is not the result of ‘some great revelation’ but rather small gestures and humble acts.”—Kirkus Reviews

"A wonderful, engaging writer . . . [Smith] offers clear, compelling, and above all useful advice for how to live with meaning and purpose."—Rod Dreher, The American Conservative

“This powerful, beautifully written book weaves together seamlessly cutting-edge psychological research, moving personal narratives and insights from great literature to make a convincing case that the key to a good life is finding or creating meaning.”—Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice; emeritus professor of psychology, Swarthmore College

“The Power of Meaning deftly tells the stories of people, contemporary and historical, who have made the quest for meaning the mission of their lives. This powerful yet elegant book will inspire you to live a life of significance.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive

“A beautiful book, full of hope. While drawing on the best scientific evidence, it also stirs us with powerful narratives of living full of meaning.”—Lord Richard Layard, Director, Well-Being Programme, Centre for Economic Performance

“The search for meaning just got a little easier, and a little more fun. To follow Emily Esfahani Smith in this great human quest is to undertake a rewarding journey with a sure-footed guide.”—Darrin M. McMahon, author of Happiness: A History; Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor of History, Dartmouth College

About the Author

Emily Esfahani Smith is an author and writer who draws on psychology, philosophy, and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME, and other publications. She is also an instructor in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an editor at the Stanford University Hoover Institution, where she manages the Ben Franklin Circles project, a collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Citizen University to build meaning in local communities. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Emily grew up in Montreal, Canada. She graduated from Dartmouth College and earned a masters in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her husband in Washington, DC.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The Meaning Crisis

On a fall day in 1930, the historian and philosopher Will Durant was raking leaves in the yard of his home in Lake Hill, New York, when a well-dressed man walked up to him. The man told Durant that he was planning to commit suicide unless the popular philosopher could give him “one good reason” to live.

Shocked, Durant attempted to respond in a way that would bring the man comfort—but his response was uninspired: “I bade him get a job—but he had one; to eat a good meal—but he was not hungry; he left visibly unmoved by my arguments.”

Durant, a writer and intellectual who died in 1981 at the age of 96, is best known for his books that brought philosophy and history to the public. The Story of Philosophy, published in 1926, became a bestseller, and his multivolume work The Story of Civilization, cowritten with his wife, Ariel Durant, over the course of forty years, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for its tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution. During his life, Durant was known as a thinker with far-ranging interests. He wrote fluently about literature, religion, and politics, and in 1977, he received one of the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government on a civilian, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Durant was raised Catholic, attended a Jesuit academy, and planned to join the priesthood. But in college, he became an atheist after he read the works of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, whose ideas “melted” his “inherited theology.” For many years following his loss of religious faith, he “brooded” over the question of meaning, but never found a satisfactory answer to it. An agnostic and empirically minded philosopher, Durant later came to see that he was unsure of what gives people a reason to go on living even when they despair. This wise man of his time could not offer a compelling answer to the suicidal man who came to him in 1930—the year after the stock market crash that inaugurated the Great Depression.

So Durant decided to write to the great literary, philosophical, and scientific luminaries of his day, from Mohandas Gandhi and Mary E. Woolley to H. L. Mencken and Edwin Arlington Robinson, to ask them how they found significance and fulfillment in their own lives during that tumultuous period of history. “Will you interrupt your work for a moment,” Durant begins his letter, “and play the game of philosophy with me? I am attempting to face a question which our generation, perhaps more than any, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer—What is the meaning or worth of human life?” He compiled their answers into a book, On the Meaning of Life, which was published in 1932.

Durant’s letter explores why many people of his time felt like they were living in an existential vacuum. For thousands of years, after all, human beings have believed in the existence of a transcendent and supernatural realm, populated by gods and spirits, that lies beyond the sensory world of everyday experiences. They regularly felt the presence of this spiritual realm, which infused the ordinary world with meaning. But, Durant argued, modern philosophy and science have shown that the belief in such a world—a world that cannot be seen or touched—is naïve at best and superstitious at worst. In doing so, they have led to widespread disenchantment.

In his letter, he explains why the loss of those traditional sources of meaning is so tragic. “Astronomers have told us that human affairs constitute but a moment in the trajectory of a star,” Durant writes; “geologists have told us that civilization is but a precarious interlude between ice ages; biologists have told us that all life is war, a struggle for existence among individuals, groups, nations, alliances, and species; historians have told us that ‘progress’ is delusion, whose glory ends in inevitable decay; psychologists have told us that the will and the self are the helpless instruments of heredity and environment, and that the once incorruptible soul is but a transient incandescence of the brain.” Philosophers, meanwhile, with their emphasis on reasoning their way to the truth, have reasoned their way to the truth that life is meaningless: “Life has become, in that total perspective which is philosophy, a fitful pullulation of human insects on the earth, a planetary eczema that may soon be cured.”

In his book, Durant relates the old story of a police officer who attempted to stop a suicidal man from jumping off a bridge. The two talked. Then they both jumped off the ledge. “This is the pass to which science and philosophy have brought us,” Durant says. Writing to these great minds, he sought a response to the nihilism of his time—a response to the despondent stranger who had left him speechless. Durant begged them for an answer to what makes life worth living—what drives them forward, what gives them inspiration and energy, hope and consolation.

Durant’s questions matter today more than ever. Hopelessness and misery are not simply on the rise; they have become epidemic. In the United States, the rate of people suffering from depression has risen dramatically since 1960, and between 1988 and 2008 the use of antidepressants rose 400 percent. These figures can’t just be attributed to the increasing availability of mental health care. According to the World Health Organization, global suicide rates have spiked 60 percent since World War II. Some populations have been particularly vulnerable. In the United States, the incidence of suicide among 15- to 24-year-olds tripled in the last half of the twentieth century. In 2016, the suicide rate reached its highest point in nearly thirty years in the general population, and for middle-aged adults, it has increased by over 40 percent since 1999. Each year, forty thousand Americans take their lives, and worldwide that number is closer to a million.

What is going on?

A 2014 study by Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia and Ed Diener of Gallup offers an answer to this question. Though the study was enormous, involving nearly 140,000 people across 132 countries, it was also straightforward. A few years earlier, researchers from Gallup had asked respondents whether they were satisfied with their lives, and whether they felt their lives had an important purpose or meaning. Oishi and Diener analyzed that data by country, correlating the levels of happiness and meaning with variables like wealth and rates of suicides and other social factors.

Their findings were surprising. People in wealthier regions, like Scandinavia, reported being happier than those in poorer ones, like sub-Saharan Africa. But when it came to meaning, it was a different story. Wealthy places like France and Hong Kong had some of the lowest levels of meaning, while the poor nations of Togo and Niger had among the highest, even though people living there were some of the unhappiest in the study. One of the most disturbing findings involved suicide rates. Wealthier nations, it turns out, had significantly higher suicide rates than poorer ones. For example, the suicide rate of Japan, where per-capita GDP was $34,000, was more than twice as high as that of Sierra Leone, where per-capita GDP was $400. This trend, on its face, didn’t seem to make sense. People in wealthier countries tend to be happier, and their living conditions are practically heavenly compared with places like Sierra Leone, which is racked by endemic disease, dire poverty, and the legacy of a devastating civil war. So what reason would they have to kill themselves?

The strange relationship between happiness and suicide has been confirmed in other research, too. Happy countries like Denmark and Finland also have some high rates of suicide. Some social scientists believe that this is because it is particularly distressing to be unhappy in a country where so many others are happy—while others suggest that the happiness levels of these countries are being inflated because the unhappiest people are taking themselves out of the population.

But Oishi and Diener’s study suggests another explanation. When they crunched the numbers, they discovered a striking trend: happiness and unhappiness did not predict suicide. The variable that did, they found, was meaning—or, more precisely, the lack of it. The countries with the lowest rates of meaning, like Japan, also had some of the highest suicide rates.

The problem many of these people face is the same one the suicidal man struggled with over eighty years ago when he asked Durant for a reason to go on. Though the conditions of his life were generally good, he nonetheless believed life was not worth living. Today, there are millions of people who join him in that belief. Four in ten Americans have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. And nearly a quarter of Americans—about one hundred million people—do not have a strong sense of what makes their lives meaningful.

The solution to this problem, obviously, is not for the United States to become more like Sierra Leone. Modernity, though it can sap life of meaning, has its benefits. But how can people living in modern societies find fulfillment? If we do not bridge the chasm between living a meaningful life and living a modern life, our drift will continue to come at a major cost. “Everyone at times,” wrote the religious scholar Huston Smith, “finds himself or herself asking whether life is worthwhile, which amounts to asking whether, when the going gets rough, it makes sense to continue to live. Those who conclude that it does not make sense give up, if not once and for all by suicide, then piecemeal, by surrendering daily to the encroaching desolation of the years”—by surrendering, in other words, to depression, weariness, and despair.

Such was the case with the famed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. In the 1870s, around the time he turned fifty, Tolstoy fell into an existential depression so severe and debilitating that he was seized by the constant desire to kill himself. His life, he had concluded, was utterly meaningless, and this thought filled him with horror.

To an outsider, the novelist’s depression might have seemed peculiar. Tolstoy, an aristocrat, had everything: he was wealthy; he was famous; he was married with several children; and his two masterpieces, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, had been published to great acclaim in 1869 and 1878, respectively. Internationally recognized as one of the greatest novelists of his time, Tolstoy had little doubt that his works would be canonized as classics of world literature.

Most people would settle for far less. But at the height of his fame, Tolstoy concluded that these accomplishments were merely the trappings of a meaningless life—which is to say that they were nothing at all to him.

In 1879, a despairing Tolstoy started writing A Confession, an autobiographical account of his spiritual crisis. He begins A Confession by chronicling how, as a university student and later a soldier, he had lived a debauched life. “Lying, stealing, promiscuity of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder—there was not a crime I did not commit,” he writes, perhaps with some exaggeration, “yet in spite of it all I was praised, and my colleagues considered me and still do consider me a relatively moral man.” It was during this period of his life that Tolstoy began writing, motivated, he claims, by “vanity, self-interest, and pride”—the desire to acquire fame and money.

He soon fell in with the literary and intellectual circles of Russia and Europe, which had built a secular church around the idea of progress. Tolstoy became one of its adherents. But then two dramatic experiences revealed to him the hollowness of believing in the perfectibility of man and society. The first was witnessing the execution by guillotine of a man in Paris in 1857. “When I saw how the head was severed from the body and heard the thud of each part as it fell into the box,” he writes, “I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act.” The second was the senseless death of his favorite brother, Nikolai, from tuberculosis. “He suffered for over a year,” Tolstoy writes, “and died an agonizing death without ever understanding why he lived and understanding even less why he was dying.”

These events shook Tolstoy, but they did not shatter him. In 1862, he got married, and family life distracted him from his doubts. So did writing War and Peace, which he started working on soon after his wedding.

Tolstoy had always been interested in the question of what gives life meaning, a theme that runs through his writings. Levin, who is widely considered an autobiographical representation of Tolstoy, famously wrestles with the problem throughout Anna Karenina. He eventually concludes that his life is not pointless: “my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”

But soon after he completed Anna Karenina in 1877, Tolstoy took a bleaker view. The question of meaning cast a shadow over everything he did. A voice inside his head started asking—Why? Why am I here? What is the purpose of all that I do? Why do I exist? And, as the years went on, that voice grew louder and more insistent: “Before I could be occupied with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books,” he writes in A Confession, “I had to know why I was doing these things.” Elsewhere in A Confession he puts the question in other ways: “What will come of what I do today and tomorrow? What will come of my entire life . . . Why should I live? Why should I wish for anything or do anything? Or to put it still differently: Is there any meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by my inevitably approaching death?” Because he could not answer the “why” of his existence, he concluded that his life was meaningless.

“Very well,” he writes, “you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Molière, more famous than all the writers in the world—so what?” Tolstoy felt like the prophet of Ecclesiastes, who wrote, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity! What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.” The only truth we can absolutely know, Tolstoy believed, is that life ends with death and is punctuated by suffering and sorrow. We and all that we hold dear—our loved ones, our accomplishments, our identities—will eventually perish.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (September 5, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553446568
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553446562
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.67 x 7.96 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #57,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #31 in Humanist Philosophy
- #221 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #311 in Emotional Mental Health

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Emily Esfahani Smith

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Emily Esfahani Smith is a writer and journalist in Washington DC. Her book, "The Power of Meaning," was published in 2017 by Crown and has been translated into 16 different languages. The Wall Street Journal called the book “persuasive,” “elegant,” and “valuable” while the Prospect (UK) dubbed it “an intelligent page-turner.” In 2017, Smith delivered a talk called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” on the main stage of TED, which was based on her book. It’s been viewed over 6 million times.

The former managing editor of The New Criterion, Smith’s articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and other publications. Her articles for The Atlantic “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” (about the Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl) and “Masters of Love” (about romance and marriage) have reached over 30 million readers. Her profile for the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine of Joe Rago, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who tragically died at the age of 34, was shortlisted for a Folio magazine award in 2018. You can read more of her pieces on her website, emilyesfahanismith.com.

Smith is also a reporter for the Aspen Institute's Weave project, an initiative founded by the New York Times' David Brooks to address the problems of isolation, alienation, and division. At Weave, Smith finds and tells the stories of people who are working to rebuild the social fabric.

Smith got her start in journalism at Dartmouth College, where she majored in philosophy. She received her master’s degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. Between 2013 and 2018, she served as an instructor in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Smith grew up in Montreal, Canada, where her parents administered a Sufi meetinghouse from their home. She now lives in Washington DC with her husband, Charlie.

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Jessica McCann

Fascinating, inspiring and motivating read

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

What is the meaning of life? Why I am I here? These are questions that have taunted mankind since the beginning of time. THE POWER OF MEANING provides a straightforward and inspiring answer, based on extensive research and analysis. Simply put, the meaning of life is to find meaning in life. And it’s actually easier to find than we are often led to believe.

“The search for meaning is not a solitary philosophical quest, as it’s often depicted,” writes the author. “… and meaning is not something we create within ourselves and for ourselves. Rather, meaning largely lies in others. If we want to find meaning in our own lives, we have to begin by reaching out.”

There is so much to this book, it’s hard to boil it down in a review. (I found myself rereading and marking lines on page after page, and I handwrote six pages of notes upon completing it.) By summarizing dozens of psychological studies, presenting scores of anecdotes and stories about real people, and sharing many of her own thoughts and insights on the differences between happiness and meaning, Smith ultimately brings the reader to the simplest of revelations.

Belonging, purpose, storytelling and transcendence: these are the four pillars of meaning, and they are accessible to everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds or economic status. As someone who has made a living as a professional writer and author, I was particularly struck by the storytelling section. Though it was not surprising to me that story plays a critical role in finding fulfillment in life, it was fascinating to learn the many reasons why (both for the storytellers themselves, as well as for listeners or imbibers of those stories). The author turned to several novels to help illustrate her points – from MIDDLEMARCH and THE LITTLE PRINCE to LIFE OF PI and THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH – as well as numerous memoirs.

I especially liked this point: “We are all the authors of our own stories and can choose to change the way we are telling them. One of the greatest contributions of psychology and psychotherapy research is the idea that we can edit, revise and interpret the stories we tell about our lives even as we are constrained by the facts.” And how we perceive our lives and stories is directly related to whether we ultimately find fulfillment in them.

The sections on belonging, purpose and transcendence are equally fascinating. They are packed with examples of how seeking and finding fulfillment leads to better physical and mental health, helps us overcome traumatic events, and guides us to lasting contentment rather than fleeting happiness.

I highly recommend this book to all who want to expand how they view the world and the people with whom they share it.

6 people found this helpful

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M. R. Wilson

It's more fulfilling to seek meaning over happiness

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

I was inspired to read this book after watching the author's TED Talk. In a world flooded with self-help books promising to deliver the recipe for happiness, this is refreshing and nourishing. I've long felt happiness is a fleeting thing, to be experienced in brief moments. Living a meaningful life rather than striving to the point of exhaustion for a happy life makes much more sense to me. Smith's personal narrative as well as the stories of others shared in her book make for a comforting, satisfying read.

8 people found this helpful

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Vanessa Salas

A MUST read

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

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I share Smith's Ted Talk with my students and it's always a hit. This book adds so much richness and history to the topics she covers in her talk. The content is relatable and immediately applicable to life. Gets us away from a me-centered and happiness-centered existence and refocuses on serving others and giving back for a more purposeful life. I have recently been grappling with a terminal illness in my immediate family, and this book has changed my perspective. I can't wait to give it away as a gift and buy another copy for myself! :) THANK YOU

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Kate Snowise

Best book I've Read this Year

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2017

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This is an excellent, moving read that will get you thinking about life in a deeper way if you let it. The author makes an incredibly complex subject so much more approachable by breaking it down into the 4 pillars. They really resonated with me and helped me identify where I pull my feelings of fulfillment and meaning from. A must read for anyone not content with living a surface level life.

2 people found this helpful

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alexandra

Amazing self-help book for living a meaningful life

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is thoroughly researched, and provides much insight to living a meaning full life! This book helps, and ensures that this is not the end! There is so much more by finding our true purpose and other pillars of happiness, we can achieve anything if we put our minds to it

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Gary Moreau, Author

An ambitious undertaking, done well.

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

It is the conundrum that has haunted us from the beginning of time: What is the meaning of life? To Emily—her writing and personality seem to invite familiarity—it all turns on the four pillars of meaning: belonging, purpose, storytelling, and transcendence.

Emily gave a TED talk in April, 2017, entitled, “There is more to life than being happy,” and if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. It is insightful, concise, engaging, and delivered with humility and authenticity. My first thought upon watching it was that we should all have a cup of coffee with this woman.

People will be naturally inclined to compare the book and the talk, and many reviewers have. That’s certainly understandable, in part due to the high quality of the talk, but perhaps a bit unfair. It is far easier to explain a concept that is already positively perceived, like belonging and purpose, in summary than in detail. Since we ultimately want to believe, the explanations can seem less inspiring than the summary itself.

The author tells her story through stories. And some have noted that the stories sometimes seem disconnected or less than fully relevant. And they are, in many cases, not run-of-the-mill. A Compline religious service, or a Sufi meetinghouse, for example, are not things most of us will ever experience. This sense of irrelevance, however, is more due to the story of the book rather than the stories themselves. The meaning of life is an ambitious topic to take on.

Different parts of the book will resonate more or less with different readers. The sections on storytelling resonated with me. I’ve always been struck by the observation that good storytellers not only make good authors; they seem to be more grounded than the rest of us. One might conclude that this is a function of the skills of storytelling, but I think that’s too simple an explanation, and Emily has reinforced my thinking.

We all have a narrative. If we can’t tell it without jumping around like beads of water on a hot skillet, it probably has less to do with our ability to tell stories than the perspective we bring to the story. Every narrative is compelling when perceived in the right way, although far from all are redemptive.

The concept that I struggle with most is belonging. It suggests a need to externalize that I find uncomfortable. For starters, I do believe there are a large and growing number of us who will never externalize, whether we seek to or not, yet each of us has a great deal to offer. Are we destined to live lives without meaning?

Secondly, I believe my life does have meaning, despite the fact that I belong to no group even remotely similar to the Society for Creative Anachronism, the group of medieval enthusiasts and re-creationists this is the subject of one of her stories.

This lack of interest in joining any club I attribute, in the utmost positive way, to my Chinese wife. We live our lives isolated from the world but far from alone. We have each other in the most basic sense. To say we share a soul seems demeaning and cliché. We share more than that. Were someone to find us months are our passing alone in our townhouse, there would be no need for sorrow. We would have died very content. Probably not in each other’s arms; perhaps not even happy in the sense that word is commonly used; but each with belonging in our hearts.

To be sure, Emily does make it clear that group-belonging is just one form of belonging. In fact, she ends with this: “Love, of course, is at the center of the meaningful life.” And, “That’s the power of meaning. It’s not some great revelation. It’s pausing to say hi to a newspaper vendor and reaching out to someone at work who seems down.”

Emily is a philosopher, psychologist, scientist, and a person who was taught a highly spiritual perspective from an early age. That may mean that her language and perspective seem a little scattered to anyone who is strongly associated with only one or two of these perspectives.

I think, however, that this diversity in thought and perspective makes her uniquely qualified to write this book. Anyone who has ever tried to thoughtfully meditate in the Buddhist tradition (I have not, but I have spent a lot of time over the last six decades contemplating the void, as I refer to it.) will know that is not easy.

For some of us, in the same way, this book may not be easy either. I do believe, however, that it is well worth the effort. There is, after all, no bigger and important question you will face as you go through your day.

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Hande Z

Don't worry, be happy.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2017

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This is a book about the search for the meaning and purpose of life. There are innumerable books on this subject but this one is a refreshing in many ways. The author comes from a family of Sufis in Iran but has settled as a psychologist in New York. Her account of the practices of Sufis in their search for meaning illuminates for outsiders that religion in itself is probably harmless. It is when religion mixes with politics that things go awry. Politics is an undiluted poison.

Smith examines despondency and mental distress associated with the loss of a sense of purpose, and the various ways one can overcome that. She provides examples from Leo Tolstoy to Will Durant, and to films like ‘Good Will Hunting’. The theme of this book is that we need to find a meaning and purpose in life. That is a fine thing for some people, and this book augments religion and philosophy insofar as they reach out to people who are searching for the meaning in life.

This book therefore does not take into account that there is an alternative view – that there is no meaning or purpose in life except to be good, do good, and live. There is some overlap in this view and hers, but the critical difference is that the alternative view accepts that there is no ‘meaning’ – whatever that might mean – to life. We exist, then we cease to exist. To live is to die. That applies to all living things, plant or animal. We are no exception. But that does not mean that those who accept this are zombies or are inhuman, or are desperate and unhappy. The flaw in Smith’s thesis lies in the assumption that unless we actively search for meaning and to live life the way she prescribes, we end up despondent and suicidal.

Her account of how retirees live is an example. She holds the view that unless they have a purpose in life, retirees are going to be unhappy in retirement. She thinks that retirees must learn to contribute to society. People who spend the better part of their lives in service of society might wish to relax and spend the rest of their lives for themselves. Should society begrudge them that if that makes them happy? Again, there is an overlap between the two alternative views. Some retirees continue to contribute, some a lot more, some a lot less, and some not at all. That does not mean that they are or will be unhappy unless they find a meaning in life. She may not appreciate that many retirees, precisely because they are at that stage in life, see no purpose in finding the meaning of life. Perhaps they have been there, done that. It is an attitude that is not the preserve of retirees. The enlightened youth can be happy, contribute to society, and be good, without searching for the meaning of life. If there is that answer will be an eternal best seller topping any other book on earth.
Don’t worry, be good, be happy.

14 people found this helpful

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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2020

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During a difficult period at work, I was recommended this book, and I found it helpful. My greatest problem was storytelling. I was telling myself the kind of stories that the books advises against, so trying to change the story felt like first thing I had to deal with. Belonging was the second problem, but I was able to identify with colleagues in a similar situation, so that was helpful, and then I was able to focus on purpose. I have more difficulty connecting with the concept of transcendence, as described in the book, but when I've heard the author talk about "flow", I think I get the idea. There are still difficulties, but my experience so far is that the four pillars of meaning presents itself as a useful framework for trying to get back on track.

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Jonathan Gilbert

An incredibly important book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 4, 2018

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If you are looking for the usual self help happiness guide then this isn't the book for you. If you are looking for a brilliantly researched, fascinatingly illustrative guide to what really brings fulfilment and high quality of life then this is the book for you. The depth of evidence supporting the four pillars of meaning as crucial to a life well lived and yes ultimately to happiness are brought to life not only with excellent scientific backing but also fascinating and vivid stories of individual's lives. As a Nichiren Buddhist and SGI member I can see how the four pillars have been manifesting in my life and it supports my choices and the meaning of my life and practice. This book is incredibly important to guide people away from purely seeking happiness through therapies, self indulgence and hedonism and has an underlying message of the importance of making helping others the key to a great life. I feel the title also is a subtle nod and challenge to Tolle's the Power of Now which focuses only on the moment and transcendence. The Power of Meaning is a far greater book in expansively looking at our full humanity and what it means to be fully alive whatever our background, race, religion.

4 people found this helpful

Deborah Page

Book with meaning

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2018

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Inspirational guidance that makes sense and is easy to implement into every day life. Found this book very useful and ordered a copy for my sister as feel it is something everyone should read.

One person found this helpful

ajl

A great book, with lots of insight - probably too ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2017

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A great book, with lots of insight - probably too 'self improvement' oriented for some, but hit the spot for me as I transition into the third age and seek to live life out in the fullest and most meaningful way that I can....

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