research on purpose in life

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3 crucial discoveries about purpose in life, we all strive to find meaning and cultivate a sense of purpose..

Posted September 1, 2021 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• Purpose has been the focus of significant scientific research.
• Research has shown that purpose is correlated with health, wealth, and happiness.
• Research has shown that purpose can alter our perceptions.
• Research has shown that purpose just might be increased by perceiving connections in our world.

Purpose in life is a hot topic. Particularly these days, we're all striving to find meaning and cultivate a sense of purpose in our life. Yet few people know that there is actually a large and established body of empirical psychological research examining this topic. Decades of study on purpose in life has shown us three important things:

1. Purpose is correlated with health, wealth, and happiness.

Cross-sectional research has shown that possessing a sense of purpose in life is a powerful predictor of numerous positive outcomes. Purposeful people have stronger immune systems (Fredrickson et al., 2013), recover more quickly from surgery (Kim et al., 2013), and even live longer (Hill & Turiano, 2014). Possessing a sense of purpose has also been shown to correlate with economic success (Hill et al., 2019). Finally, people at every stage of life are happier when they possess a sense of purpose (Bronk et al., 2009).

2. Purpose can alter your perceptions.

In a clever study spearheaded by my colleague, Dr. Anthony Burrow, participants were placed at the bottom of a steep hill (Burrow, Hill & Sumner, 2015). Participants were then asked to gauge the angle of the grade up the hill and how much effort would be required to ascend it. Those who possessed a greater sense of purpose actually viewed the hill as less steep and more easily surmountable, suggesting that purpose can shape how individuals perceive their environment.

3. Purpose is all about patterns (maybe).

Significant study has highlighted how purpose affects one's psychology. Yet, the million-dollar question remains: How can someone actually develop a sense of purpose, and can we increase our sense of purpose? If purpose is so beneficial, everyone should want to foster this salubrious sense. Unfortunately, the research on this front isn't so clear, but one interesting study does implicate the "Meaning Maintenance Model" (or "MMM").

Essentially, human beings are pattern detectors. We expect that certain things will be associated with one another: Good people will make good decisions, winter will bring cold weather, and dogs will bark (rather than meow). According to the MMM, these "congruent" experiences are necessary in order to sustain one's sense of purpose in life. Whenever expected associations are violated by unexpected experiences ("incongruence"), we feel that our life does not make sense, and our feelings of purpose decline.

In their seminal four-part study, Heintzelman, Trent & King (2013) found for the first time that one's subjective sense of purpose in life could be manipulated by external cues. Participants were randomly split into "coherent" and "incoherent" conditions. In Studies 1 and 2, participants in the coherent conditions viewed photos of trees in seasonal change presented in a natural order (spring, summer, autumn, winter), whereas the incoherent conditions saw the same photos in a random order. In Studies 3 and 4, participants in the coherent conditions were exposed to word triads with a common association (e.g., food, knife, napkin) whereas participants in the incoherent conditions were exposed to discordant word triads (e.g. guitar, airplane, cold).

In each of these four studies, participants exposed to coherent stimuli reported experiencing a greater sense of purpose than those exposed to incoherent stimuli. These exciting results suggest that simply perceiving coherent connections in virtually any sphere of life might promote a sense of purpose.

LinkedIn image: Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock

Bronk, K. C., Hill, P. L., Lapsley, D. K., Talib, N., & Finch, H. (2009). Purpose, hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 , 500–510.

Hill, P. L., Cheung, F., Kubel, A., & Burrow, A. L. Life engagement is associated with higher GDP among societies. (2019). Journal of Research in Personality, 78 , 210-214.

Fredrickson, B. L., Grewen, K. M., Coffey, K. A., Algoe, S. B., Firestine, A. M., Arevalo, J. M., ... & Cole, S. W. (2013). A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110 (33), 13684-13689.

Kim, E. S., Sun, J. K., Park, N., Kubzansky, L. D., & Peterson, C. (2013). Purpose in life and reduced risk of myocardial infarction among older US adults with coronary heart disease: a two-year follow-up. Journal of behavioral medicine, 36 (2), 124-133.

Hill, P. L., & Turiano, N. A. (2014). Purpose in Life as a Predictor of Mortality Across Adulthood. Psychological Science, 25 (7), 1482–1486.

Heintzelman, S. J., Trent, J., & King, L. A. (2013). Encounters with objective coherence and the experience of meaning in life. Psychological Science, 24 (6), 991–998.

Maclen Stanley is a Harvard Law School graduate, practicing attorney, and author of The Law Says What? Prior to his legal career, he received an Ed.M. in Developmental Psychology from Harvard.

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How purpose changes across your lifetime, purpose is not a destination, suggests research, but a journey and a practice..

Purpose is the stuff of inspirational posters and motivational speeches. When we find our purpose, they say, we’ll know what we are meant to do in life. The path will be laid out before us, and our job will be to keep following that vision with unwavering commitment.

But is this really what purpose looks like?

Alongside the self-help hype is a body of research on purpose across the lifespan, reaching back more than 30 years. Following people as they grapple with their identity as teens, settle into the responsibilities of adulthood, and make the shift to retirement, this research paints a more complicated picture of purpose—but a hopeful one, too.

Here’s the upshot: We don’t have to worry about finding our one true purpose; we can find purpose in different areas of life. In fact, purpose isn’t something we find at all. It’s something we can cultivate through deliberate action and reflection, and it will naturally wax and wane throughout our lives.

Like happiness, purpose is not a destination, but a journey and a practice. That means it’s accessible at any age, if we’re willing to explore what matters to us and what kind of person we want to be—and act to become that person.

This “is a project that endures across the lifespan,” as purpose expert Kendall Bronk and her colleagues write in a 2009 paper. If we’re able to revisit and renew our sense of purpose as we navigate milestones and transitions, suggests this research, then we can look forward to more satisfying, meaningful lives.

Teens: Seeking purpose

A purpose in life is not just any big goal that we pursue. According to researchers, purpose is a long-term aim that is meaningful to the self—but goes beyond the self, aiming to make a difference to the broader world. We might find purpose in fighting poverty, creating art, or making people’s lives better through technology.

That process begins when we’re teens, as we explore who we are, what we value, and what we want out of life, says Bronk, an associate professor at Claremont Graduate University. As they try different interests and activities, like music or volunteering, some teens start to discover paths they want to pursue. Other teens have challenging life experiences, like a parent being diagnosed with cancer or a shooting in their hometown, that spur them to work on particular causes. Others are inspired by role models who are leading purposeful lives, from parents to coaches.

Mariah Jordan from Cleveland, one of the winners of the GGSC Purpose Challenge Scholarship Contest, often accompanied her grandmother to doctor’s appointments as a child. Over time, witnessing her grandmother’s experiences, she began to see the racial inequalities that existed in health care. She went on to volunteer in a medical setting and conduct research on cancer in African Americans, working to eliminate health disparities and bring more cultural sensitivity to the field of medicine.

Talk with Teens about Purpose

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William Damon, author of The Path to Purpose and a professor at Stanford, has spent nearly 20 years studying how people develop purpose in work, family, and civic life. As he describes it, purpose is something of a chemical reaction that takes place when our skills meet the needs of the world. Young people must identify something in their environment that could be improved, whether it’s politics or modern jazz music, and recognize something in themselves that they can bring to bear on that problem—leadership skills, say, or creativity.

Knowing your skills and your interests—and in a larger sense, your identity—seems to be key to pursuing purpose. In a 2011 study , high school and college students answered surveys about their sense of purpose, as well as their sense of identity—how clear they were on the kinds of jobs, values, friendships, politics, religion, and sex roles they would have in life. Researchers found that the more solid their sense of identity, the more purposeful they were. In turn, they were also happier and more hopeful for the future.

A 2012 study by the same researchers had a similar finding, but in the opposite direction—with young people who felt purposeful building a more solid sense of identity over time. “Identity and purpose development are intertwined processes,” write Patrick Hill of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Anthony Burrow of Cornell University.

At this age, though, only about 20 percent of teens have a strong sense of purpose in life, at least according to Damon’s work. Others have pie-in-the-sky dreams, or fun hobbies, or they’re just trying to get through high school. More often, childhood and adolescence seem to be the time when the building blocks of purpose are established, but we’re still exploring what we want out of life.

Adults: Busy with purpose

According to Damon, most people who find purpose do so in their 20s and 30s. This is when we tend to start building a career and a family—both of which are major sources of purpose during adulthood, along with religion and volunteering.

In the family realm, we may find a deep sense of purpose from raising children, as well as taking care of aging parents . At work, we might feel fulfilled in supporting our coworkers, making a difference in the organization, or contributing to society, Damon writes .

When education professional Paul LeBuffe found out that he was raising a special-needs child, it was a turning point for his family and his career—and his sense of purpose. Since then, he has been working to promote resilience in children and adults, and within his own family. Working in that field means he’s always learning things he can apply to his own life, which helps give him a sense of balance.

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While finding purpose can feel like an exciting adventure for young people, who might take gap years or try interesting electives in college, purpose becomes more urgent for adults.

In a 2009 study , Bronk and her colleagues surveyed people of different age groups, including nearly 400 young people (in their teens and early 20s) and over 400 adults (around age 35). When they were searching for purpose, young people were more satisfied with life—but this wasn’t true of adults. In fact, the more they were still actively seeking purpose, the less satisfied they were. The researchers surmise that this comes down to cultural norms and the expectations adults have for themselves.

“In our culture we expect young people to explore what matters most to them, but by midlife, we expect them to have sorted this out,” write Bronk and her colleagues.

At some age, lacking in purpose becomes unpleasant—but Bronk points out that having purpose isn’t always a picnic, either. Going after a big, long-term goal can be stressful and discouraging; as anyone who has raised a child knows, things that bring us meaning don’t always bring us day-to-day fun and good cheer.

While there may be struggles, though, people who have that sense of direction and purpose do ultimately tend to have more satisfying , healthier , and even longer lives .

Midlife and beyond: A crossroads of purpose

While purpose tends to be highest in adulthood, old age can come with a diminishing sense of purpose and direction. In one survey of people ages 50-92, only 30 percent reported feeling purposeful.

The causes aren’t too surprising. Two of the biggest sources of purpose for adults, work and family, take a major hit when we retire and when kids leave home. Suddenly, we wake up to days that aren’t structured by meetings and deadlines, by soccer games and homework help. It can feel like the things that defined us—our very identity—are slipping away. On top of all that, niggling health problems can make it physically harder to stay involved with activities and people that might keep us feeling engaged.

Gerontologist and AgeWave founder Ken Dychtwald sees a pattern where society doesn’t recognize the value and wisdom of older people, writing them off as feeble or irrelevant, and elders don’t always put in the work to learn new technology and connect with younger people. While society might be telling them to relax and enjoy their golden years, he says, many older adults just feel adrift.

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Not everyone has this experience, of course. People who have strong relationships and a positive attitude toward aging tend to fare better. In one study , researchers interviewed people ages 61-70 and identified the ones who were able to maintain or increase their sense of purpose over the decade. Those individuals often turned their efforts inward to become better human beings, learning new skills or tackling long-held emotional struggles. As Damon explains, the pause of retirement and an empty nest can be an invitation to introspection, in ways that weren’t possible in our chaotic midlives, and a reconnection with the things that truly matter.

John Leland, a New York Times reporter, had the opportunity to follow six New Yorkers over 85 for a year and get an intimate glimpse into their lives. They became his friends, he says, and their stories were featured in his book about happiness. He observes that the elders who held on to a sense of purpose thrived because of their flexibility. They rolled with the punches as their lives changed and evolved, and they remained open to new experiences.

“Those who are able to understand their roles as constantly changing, constantly evolving—it’s a story that they’re still writing—are able to deal with the ups and downs that we all confront better than people who see themselves as fixed in one point,” he says.

In many ways, the pursuit of purpose as an older adult looks a lot like it does for teens. Marc Freedman, founder of the generation-connecting organization Encore.org, sees this parallel, too: Instead of internships, Encore.org offers fellowships where older people spend up to a year working in nonprofits, foundations, and other social sector organizations. The experience is designed to help them find an “encore career,” a purposeful activity that serves the greater good and contributes to the world they’ll leave behind.

Gary Maxworthy, who won Encore.org’s Purpose Prize in 2007, was 56 when his wife died from cancer. After more than three decades in food distribution, he wanted to give back. He started volunteering at a food bank, where he quickly noticed a big problem and a big opportunity: Growers were having to send lots of “imperfect” produce to landfills, because they couldn’t sell it, and accepting fresh produce was too difficult for food banks. He created Farm to Family to solve that problem and ensure that fresh fruit and vegetables make it to families in need.

Other Encore.org fellows include retired doctors caring for underserved patients and retired tech company executives helping to improve online government services. Meanwhile, organizations like Stanford’s Advanced Leadership Institute and the Modern Elder Academy offer college-like experiences for older adults looking for a fresh start. In Freedman’s experience, very few of us will wake up one day with a totally new purpose in life. Instead, he observes people draw on the skills, knowledge, and values they’ve cultivated over a lifetime to start a new chapter.

That’s good news, because it means the building blocks of purpose are already within us when we reach maturity.

The practice of purpose

Years ago, Bronk interviewed young people about their sense of purpose, hoping to gain some insight into how it developed. Afterward, she was surprised to hear how much the participants enjoyed the conversation. In fact, she and her team discovered that talking with young people about the things that mattered to them actually increased their sense of purpose in life—an outcome the researchers hadn’t even been looking for.

That’s partly why Bronk believes, deep down, that everyone has a purpose, even if they don’t realize it or know what it is yet.

“We all have things that we care about, we all have special talents that we can apply to make a meaningful difference in the world around us,” she says. Other researchers agree that you can have a sense of purpose even if you can’t write it down in a simple sentence: “My purpose is…”

As we’ve seen, we can have multiple purposes that rise and fall in importance over our lifetime, as schedules are juggled and priorities shift. When we face transitions, whether it’s changing careers, going through divorce or illness, or hitting a milestone birthday, we may be prompted to slow down, reflect, and reprioritize.

In other words, purpose is a constant practice—which is something Leland took away from his time with New York’s “oldest old.”

“They believed that purpose was something you created, not something you sought, and it would be something that you have to keep creating,” reflects Leland. “I think they would say that happiness would be the same thing. It’s something that you have within you, and you have to tap it and recognize it and cultivate it rather than waiting for it to come your way.”

This article is part of a GGSC initiative on “ Finding Purpose Across the Lifespan ,” supported by the John Templeton Foundation. In a series of articles, podcast episodes, and other resources, we’ll be exploring why and how to deepen your sense of purpose at different stages of life.

About the Author

Kira M. Newman

Kira M. Newman is the managing editor of Greater Good . Her work has been published in outlets including the Washington Post , Mindful magazine, Social Media Monthly , and Tech.co, and she is the co-editor of The Gratitude Project . Follow her on Twitter!

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Purpose in Life: A Reconceptualization for Very Late Life

• Research Paper
• Published: 14 February 2022
• Volume 23 , pages 2337–2348, ( 2022 )

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• Keith A. Anderson 1 ,
• Noelle L. Fields 1 ,
• Jessica Cassidy 1 &
• Lisa Peters-Beumer 2  

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Purpose in life has been defined as having goals, aims, objectives, and a sense of directedness that give meaning to one’s life and existence. Scales that measure purpose in life reflect this future-oriented conceptualization and research using these measures has consistently found that purpose in life tends to be lower for older adults than for those in earlier stages of life. In this article, we use an illustrative case study to explore the concept of purpose in life in very late life and critically challenge existing conceptualizations and measures of purpose in life. We examine the two most commonly used measures of purpose in life, the Purpose in Life Test and the Ryff Purpose Subscale and identify specific items that should be reconsidered for use with older adults in very late life. Guided by Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, we then reconceptualize purpose in life in very late life and posit that it consists of three domains—the retrospective past, the near present, and the transcendental post-mortem. We conclude with suggestions on the development of new measures of purpose in life in very late life that are reflective of this shift in time horizons and the specific characteristics of this unique time in life.

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Anderson, K.A., Fields, N.L., Cassidy, J. et al. Purpose in Life: A Reconceptualization for Very Late Life. J Happiness Stud 23 , 2337–2348 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00512-7

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Purpose in Life in Older Adults: A Systematic Review on Conceptualization, Measures, and Determinants

Affiliations.

• 1 Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, 10 Buangkok View, Singapore 539747, Singapore.
• 2 Geriatric Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, 10 Buangkok View, Singapore 539747, Singapore.
• 3 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Clinical Sciences Building, Singapore 308207, Singapore.
• 4 Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117549, Singapore.
• PMID: 35627396
• PMCID: PMC9141815
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19105860

Purpose in life (PIL) is a psychological construct that reflects one's life goals and the desire or determination to pursue them. Having a purpose provides an intrinsic motivation to adopt healthy behaviors as we age, which will help us to achieve positive health outcomes. Thus, promoting PIL is the cornerstone for successful aging and better health outcomes. This systematic review aims to identify how PIL is conceptualized, measured in the existing literature and what are the determinants of PIL in older adults (≥65 years). Electronic searches were conducted in five databases (Medline, PsychInfo, Embase, CINAHL and Web of Science). A total of 44 studies were included in the review. PIL was conceptualized in six different ways: health and well-being, meaningful goals and purpose, inner strength, social relationships, mattering to others, and spirituality and religiousness. There were six main questionnaires and semi structured interviews used to capture PIL. Female gender, higher education and income, being married, ethnicity, health and well-being, inner strength, social integration and spirituality were associated with PIL. Majority of the included studies had low to moderate Risk of Bias (RoB) assuring confidence in the results. The conceptual frameworks of PIL identified in the review underscore the complexity of the construct. Several sociodemographic and other determinants of PIL were identified.

Keywords: conceptualization; determinants; measures; older adults; purpose in life.

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The psychology of purpose in life

• July 13, 2021

My mama always told me that miracles happen every day. Some people don’t think so, but they do.

—Forrest Gump

The human mind is one of the most fascinating things in the universe; it can understand its environment, it can solve the toughest problems, and it can create its own reality. However, there are a few age-old questions that the majority of people have grappled with at some point in their lives: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? These questions have been explored through a variety of avenues such as religion, music, art, and philosophy. But does meaning in life always have to be about the grand questions, or can it be something else? First, what is “meaning in life?”

Meaning in life can be difficult to define as it may be a highly personal experience. Researchers have defined meaning in life as a feeling that one’s life is significant, purposeful, and coherent; in other words, having a direction that makes sense and has a feeling of worth. From where one derives meaning is directly tied to values. Your values are beliefs of what is important, and they serve as guiding principles to your actions. Understanding how your individual values fit into your life and the world around you provides a sense of meaning. 

An individual may find meaning in various domains of life, including work, relationships, hobbies, and interests. Researchers actually consider meaning in life as a core component to living a successful and happy life. Having meaning in life has been associated with a  wide range of benefits . For example, people who consider themselves to have higher levels of meaning in life are much happier in general. Living a meaningful life is associated with  better health, greater achievement in life, and stronger personal relationships . Meaning in life is also associated with  higher income . Overall, having meaning in life is a great thing! However, for those who are struggling to find meaning, we have some suggestions that could be helpful.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. —Viktor Frankl

Finding meaning is as subjective as can be, which can be a great thing! We can all derive meaning from very different places. For instance, some people may find a great deal of purpose by giving back to their community and  volunteering for a greater cause . Others may find purpose by challenging themselves to do something they haven’t ever done, such as cooking new recipes or attempting a fitness goal. One of the best ways to find meaning is to spend quality time with your family, so invite them over for a delicious dinner! Even just writing down your thoughts in a journal and reflecting on your day can help you attain a strong sense of meaning. Whatever is important to you and aligns with your personal values can bring a deep sense of meaning. Remember, finding meaning does not have to be a complicated process, you can find it in the simplest of life’s joys.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wenceslao (Wen) Martinez is a master’s student in the Translational Research on Aging and Chronic Disease Laboratory in CSU’s Department of Health and Exercise Science — and he finds a lot of purpose in doing science.

Allie Alayan is a Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology at CSU. She finds purpose in researching how people find purpose in their lives.

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What's Your Purpose? Finding A Sense Of Meaning In Life Is Linked To Health

Mara Gordon

Having a purpose in life, whether building guitars or swimming or volunteer work, affects your health, researchers found. It even appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than exercising regularly. Dean Mitchell/Getty Images hide caption

Having a purpose in life, whether building guitars or swimming or volunteer work, affects your health, researchers found. It even appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than exercising regularly.

Having a purpose in life may decrease your risk of dying early, according to a study published Friday.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 American adults between the ages of 51 and 61 who filled out psychological questionnaires on the relationship between mortality and life purpose.

What they found shocked them, according to Celeste Leigh Pearce, one of the authors of the study published in JAMA Current Open .

People who didn't have a strong life purpose — which was defined as "a self-organizing life aim that stimulates goals" — were more likely to die than those who did, and specifically more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases.

"I approached this with a very skeptical eye," says Pearce , an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. "I just find it so convincing that I'm developing a whole research program around it."

People without a strong life purpose were more than twice as likely to die between the study years of 2006 and 2010, compared with those who had one.

This association between a low level of purpose in life and death remained true despite how rich or poor participants were, and regardless of gender, race, or education level. The researchers also found the association to be so powerful that having a life purpose appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than drinking, smoking or exercising regularly.

"Just like people have basic physical needs, like to sleep and eat and drink, they have basic psychological needs," says Alan Rozanski , a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who was not involved in this research but has studied the relationship between life purpose and physical health.

"The need for meaning and purpose is No. 1," Rozanski adds. "It's the deepest driver of well-being there is."

The new study adds to a small but growing body of literature on the relationship between life purpose and physical health. Rozanski published a 2016 paper in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine , for example, that used data from 10 studies to show that strong life purpose was associated with reduced risk of mortality and cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or stroke.

Study authors for the new JAMA Current Open study pulled data from a large survey of older American adults called the Health and Retirement Study . Participants were asked a variety of questions on topics such as finances, physical health and family life.

A subset of participants filled out psychological questionnaires, including a survey called the Psychological Wellbeing Scale , in 2006. This includes questions designed to understand how strong a person's sense of life purpose is. For example, it asks them to rate their responses to questions like, "Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them."

The study authors used people's answers to these questions to quantify how powerful their degree of life purpose was. The researchers then compared that information to data on participants' physical health up until 2010, including whether or not participants died and what they died from.

The survey didn't ask participants to define how they find meaning in life. What matters, according to the researchers, is not exactly what a person's life purpose is, but that they have one.

"For some, it might be raising children. For others, it might be doing volunteer work," Pearce says. "Where your life fulfillment comes from can be very individual."

The study's lead author, Aliya Alimujiang , who is a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Michigan, says she got involved in the project because of a personal interest in mindfulness and wellness.

Before she started graduate school, Alimujiang worked as a volunteer in a breast cancer clinic and says she was struck by how the patients who could articulate how they found meaning in life seemed to do better.

That experience helped her define part of her own life purpose: researching the phenomenon.

"I had a really close relationship with the breast cancer patients. I saw the fear and anxiety and depression they had," Alimujiang says. "That helped me to apply for [graduate] school. That's how I started my career."

Pearce says that while the link between life purpose and physical well-being seems strong, more research is needed to explore the physiological connection between the two, like whether having a low life purpose is connected to high levels of stress hormones. She also hopes to study public health strategies — like types of therapy or educational tools — that might help people develop a strong sense of their life's work.

"What I'm really struck by is the strength of our findings, as well as the consistency in the literature overall," Pearce says. "It seems quite convincing."

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7 Tips for Finding Your Purpose in Life

Discover What Brings You Fullfillment

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Why Do You Need a Sense of Purpose?

Donate time, money, or talent, listen to feedback, surround yourself with positive people, start conversations with new people, explore your interests, consider injustices that bother you, discover what you love to do.

• How Do You Know You've Found Your Purpose?

A Word From Verywell

Finding your purpose in living is more than a cliché: Learning how to live your life with purpose can lead to a sense of control, satisfaction, and general contentment. Feeling like what you do is worthwhile is, arguably, a significant key to a happy life. But what this means is different for each person. This article touches on a few helpful strategies for finding and steering your rudder in a sometimes turbulent sea.

Only around 25% of American adults say they have a clear sense of what makes their lives meaningful, according to one analysis in The New York Times . Another 40% either claim neutrality on the subject or say they don't.

A 2010 study published in Applied Psychology found that individuals with high levels of eudemonic well-being—a sense of purpose and control control and a feeling like what you do is worthwhile—tend to live longer. Other researchers found that well-being might be protective for health maintenance. In that research, people with the strongest well-being were 30% less likely to die during the eight-and-a-half-year follow-up period.

There’s also research that links feeling as if you have a sense of purpose to positive health outcomes such as fewer strokes and heart attacks, better sleep, and a lower risk of dementia and disabilities.

A 2016 study published in the Journal of Research and Personality found that individuals who feel a sense of purpose make more money than individuals who feel as though their work lacks meaning .

So the good news is, you don’t have to choose between having wealth and living a meaningful life. You might find that the more purpose you feel, the more money you’ll earn.

With all of those benefits, finding purpose and meaning in your life is clearly central to fulfillment--but it's likely to take time and patience.

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Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of  The Verywell Mind Podcast , featuring activist Erin Brockovich, shares tips on standing up for what’s right, taking care of yourself, and tackling things that seem impossible. Click below to listen now.

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The process requires plenty of self-reflection, listening to others, and finding where your passions lie. These seven strategies can help you reveal or find your purpose so you can begin living a more meaningful life. 

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If you can cultivate just one helpful habit in your search for purpose, it would be helping others.

Researchers at Florida State University and Stanford found that happiness and meaningfulness overlapped somewhat but were different: Happiness was linked to the person being a taker before a giver, whereas meaningfulness went along with being more of a giver than a taker. The givers in relationships reported having a purposeful life more often than takers did.

Altruistic behaviors could include volunteering   for a nonprofit organization, donating money to causes you care about, or simply helping out the people around you on a day-to-day basis.

Whether you decide to spend two Saturdays a month serving meals in a soup kitchen, or you volunteer to drive your elderly neighbor to the grocery store once a week, doing something kind for others can make you feel as though your life has meaning.

It can be hard to recognize the things you feel passionate about sometimes. After all, you probably like to do many different things and the things you love to do may have become so ingrained in your life that you don’t realize how important those things are.

Fortunately, other people might be able to give you some insight. There’s a good chance you’re already displaying your passion and purpose to those around you without even realizing it.

You might choose to reach out to people and ask what reminds them of you or what they think of when you enter their mind. Or you might take note when someone pays you a compliment or makes an observation about you. Write those observations down and look for patterns.

Whether people think of you as “a great entertainer” or they say “you have a passion for helping the elderly,” hearing others say what they notice about you might reinforce some of the passions you’ve already been engaging in.

As the saying goes, you are the company you keep. What do you have in common with the people who you choose to be around?

Don’t think about co-workers or family members you feel obligated to see. Think about the people you choose to spend time with outside of work and outside of family functions.

The people you surround yourself with say something about you. If you’re surrounded by people who are making positive change, you might draw from their inspiration.

On the other hand, if the people around you are negative individuals who drag you down, you might want to make some changes. It’s hard to feel passionate and purposeful when you’re surrounded by people who aren’t interested in making positive contributions.

It’s easy to browse social media while you’re alone on the subway or sitting at a bar waiting for a friend. Resist that urge. Instead, take the time to talk to the people around you.

Ask them if they are working on any projects or what they like to do for fun. Talk to them about organizations with which they are involved or if they like to donate to any particular cause.

Even though striking up conversations with strangers may feel awkward at first , talking to people outside of your immediate social circle can open your eyes to activities, causes or career opportunities that you never even knew existed. 

You might discover new activities to explore or different places to visit. And those activities might be key to helping you find your purpose.

Is there a topic that you are regularly talking about in a Facebook status update or in a Tweet? Are you regularly sharing articles about climate change or refugees? 

Are there pictures on Instagram of you engaging in a particular activity over and over, such as gardening or performing?

Consider the conversations you enjoy holding with people the most when you’re meeting face-to-face. Do you like talking about history? Or do you prefer sharing the latest money-saving tips you discovered?

The things you like to talk about and the things you enjoy sharing on social media may reveal the things that give you purpose in life.

Many people have their pet causes or passion projects that surround an injustice in the world. Is there anything that makes you so deeply unhappy to think about that it bothers you to the core?

It might be animal welfare, a particular civil rights issue or childhood obesity organizations. Perhaps the idea of senior citizens spending the holidays alone makes you weepy or you think that substance abusers need more rehabilitation opportunities—the organizations are out there, and they need your help.

You don’t necessarily have to engage in your purpose full-time. You might find your career gives you the ability to afford to help a cause you feel passionate about. Or, you might find that you are able to donate time—as opposed to money—to give to a cause that you believe in.

On the other end of the spectrum, simply thinking about what you truly love to do can help you find your purpose as well.

Do you absolutely love musical theater? Your skills might be best put to use in a way that brings live performances to children who can benefit from exposure to the arts. 

Is analyzing data something that you actually find fun? Any number of groups could find that skill to be an invaluable asset.

Consider what type of skills, talents, and passions you bring to the table. Then, brainstorm how you might turn your passion into something meaningful to you. 

How Do You Know You've Found Your Purpose?

Like the notion of purpose itself, the answer to that is subjective--and there are as many signs that someone's found their purpose as there are people.

Perhaps you feel fully connected to the universe and that you know your place in it. Maybe you've found your meaning in religion. Or you sense a strong connection with others. The feeling might arise from activities that benefit others, such as volunteering.

Ultimately, you've likely found your purpose if you've stopped asking whether you have.

Finding your purpose isn’t something you can do in a few days, weeks, or months. It can be a lifelong journey , and you must do it only one step at a time.

You also might find that your purpose changes over time. Perhaps you liked working with animals in your youth, but now you want to join forces with a cause that fights human trafficking. Or, maybe you want to do both, being among the lucky who find more than one purpose to drive their lives. 

Keep in mind your purpose doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change what you’re doing already. If you cut hair, you might decide your purpose in life is to help others feel beautiful.

 If you work as a school custodian, you might find your purpose is creating an environment that helps children learn.

Occasionally, consider pausing what you’re doing to reflect on your path: Is it taking you in the direction you want to go? If not, you can change course. Sometimes, that road to finding your purpose has a few curves, forks, and stop lights.

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• Hill PL, Turiano NA, Mroczek DK, Burrow AL. The value of a purposeful life: Sense of purpose predicts greater income and net worth .  Journal of Research in Personality . 2016:65:38-42. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.07.003.

By Amy Morin, LCSW Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

15 Ways to Find Your Purpose of Life & Realize Your Meaning

“ You don’t find meaning; you create it ,” was my answer to the question, what is meaning?

Drawn in by the unforgiving directness of the existentialist philosophers, I was (perhaps naively) attempting to respond to the question that Albert Camus said must be answered before all others: Is there meaning in life ? Or, to state it more clearly: Is a life worth living? (Camus, 1975).

This article explores a few of the questions central to the vast and complex topic of meaning and purpose in life and introduces techniques and tools to help clients find answers.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free . These creative, science-based exercises will help you learn more about your values, motivations, and goals and will give you the tools to inspire a sense of meaning in the lives of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is the purpose of life a philosophical and psychological take, how to find the purpose of your life, 10 techniques to help yourself and others, 4 useful worksheets, a note on finding meaning after trauma, divorce, and others, positivepsychology.com’s resources, a take-home message.

In The Myth of Sisyphus , Albert Camus (1975), when faced with what he saw as the meaninglessness of existence, suggested we live life to its fullest rather than attempt an escape.

For Camus, as with his contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism concerns itself with the uniqueness of the human condition (Sartre, 1964). According to the existentialist formula, life has no inherent meaning. We have free choice and, therefore, choose our values and purpose.

But where did existentialism come from?

The sense of freedom that existentialism offers is crucial – jolting us out of a comfortable malaise. It builds on Friedrich Nietzsche’s thinking that there are no universal facts and that man is isolated. He is born, lives, and dies – alone (Nietzsche, 1911; Kaufmann, 1976).

Rather than dictating how the reader should live, Nietzsche tells us we should create our values  and our sense of purpose.

And yet, if cast free, how do we create meaning and purpose?

Existentialism is indebted to Edmund Husserl’s work on perception to answer this and other questions. Writing in 1900, Husserl regards meaning, along with perception, as the creation of the individual. Meaning is not objective – to be found in the external world – but built up from our mental states (Warnock, 1970).

Martin Heidegger – often described as the first true existentialist – picks up on this idea in the heavy-weight Being and Time , written in 1927. For us to be authentic – following a state of anxiety born out of a realization that we are free – we must take responsibility for our actions, our purpose, and our meaning (Heidegger, 1927/2013).

Existentialism and the struggle for meaning

Sartre continues this line of thinking in Being and Nothingness (1964):

“…every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man.”

Separate from the world, we must realize the horror that we are free to do and create meaning . And yet, to avoid bad faith  (or inauthenticity), we must accept that we are responsible not only for ourselves but also for all people.

To the existentialist, our sense of meaning and purpose comes from what we do.

But can science and psychology help us find either? Yes, probably .

Meaning and psychology

Increasingly, psychologists have begun to realize the importance of meaning to our wellbeing and happiness.

Recent research suggests that people with increased meaning are better off – they appear happier, exhibit increased life satisfaction, and report lowered depression (Huo et al., 2019; Ivtzan, Lomas, Hefferon, & Worth, 2016; Steger, 2009).

Nevertheless, meaning is a complex construct that can be approached from multiple angles; for example, cognitively, appraising situations for meaning, and motivationally to pursue worthwhile goals (Eysenck & Keane, 2015; Ryan & Deci, 2018).

While there are many definitions of meaning  in psychology, Laura King, a psychologist at the University of Missouri, provides us with the following useful description (Heintzelman & King, 2015):

Meaning in life “may be defined as the extent to which a person experiences his or her life as having purpose, significance, and coherence.”

Whether meaning is derived from thoughtful reflection or only as a byproduct of cognitive processing, it is vital for healthy mental functioning. After all, we only attach importance to an experience and see it as significant if it has meaning. Similarly, a sense of meaning and purpose is crucial to create an environment for pursuing personal goals.

A fascinating study in 2010 took a very different perspective, bringing us closer to our initial, philosophical discussion. The realization that there is only one certainty in life – death – can cause great anxiety for many.

The Terror Management Theory (TMT) suggests that features that remind us of our mortality are likely to heighten fear around death (Routledge & Juhl, 2010). However, TMT also suggests that a life “ imbued with meaning and purpose ” can help stave off such angst.

Philosophically and psychologically, it is clear that meaning is a fundamental component of our human existence.

Meaning refers to how we “ make sense of life and our roles in it ,” while purpose refers to the “ aspirations that motivate our activities ” (Ivtzan et al., 2016).

The terms are sufficiently close to saying that in the absence of either, our life lacks a story. As humans, we need something to strive for and a sense of connectedness between the important moments that make up our existence (Steger, 2009).

Sometimes, seeing the bigger picture or recognizing our place in the broader scheme can bring great insights and even play a role in our experience of meaning in life (Hicks & King, 2007).

Share the following ideas and insights with your clients:

Mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

In 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan convinced NASA to spin the Voyager 1 Space Probe around to take one last look at Earth as the probe left the solar system. The picture it took was unlike any other before or since. Roughly 3.7 billion miles away and traveling at 40,000 miles per hour, it captured Earth as a small pale blue dot  against a band of sunlight.

The image either leaves you with a sense of deep horror at our insignificance in a vast, uncaring universe or a sense of wonder at how we came into being in such a “ vast cosmic arena .”

This realization is captured beautifully in Carl Sagan’s words and this stunning computer simulation.

Broadening the mind

Alternate points of view that broaden the mind may help an individual experience an increased sense of meaning in life (Hicks & King, 2007). With that in mind, work with your client to widen their outlook and experience others’ thoughts to challenge what they know and think.

Ask your client to:

• Read widely . Explore new ideas and beliefs that reach beyond your comfort zone.
• Widen your group of friends and contacts . Seek out those who have unique ways of looking at things – positive people who will encourage you to grow.
• Learn the methods of evidence-led, scientific thinking . Rational thinking can provide the opportunity to free yourself from biased judgments.

Finding meaning through growth

Adopting a growth mindset can also lead to increased purpose in life. Help your client move away from a fixed mindset and open up to finding new purpose through exploration and challenge (Lee, Hwang, & Jang, 2018; Smith, 2018).

Work with your client to:

• Find and build on their strengths . Try out some free online questionnaires such as the Values in Action Inventory  or the CliftonStrengths Assessment . Once identified, see how they can use their strengths more regularly in daily life.
• Explore weaknesses . If they aren’t holding the client back, help them to accept their weaknesses. If weaknesses prevent the client from living the life they wish to lead, try out techniques to build resilience and adopt a growth mindset .
• Help the client understand that the meaning they give to life is subjective and just as valid as anyone else’s.
• Accept that mistakes are part of learning.
• Encourage them to find ways to motivate themselves by building on intrinsic factors such as tasks that they feel related to, autonomous in, and can grow in competence (Ryan & Deci, 2018). After all, meaning is fundamental to motivation (Heintzelman, 2018).
• Help others . Work for charities or provide support where needed.
• Studies have shown that fostering a sense of awe, gratitude, and altruism can help strengthen a sense of purpose.
• Ask the client to listen to the positive things people have to say about them.
• Writing or reading about personal experiences can help develop a shared understanding of meaning. Not only does it build a sense of who we are, but it also makes sense of our experiences.

Download 3 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to find meaning in life help and pursue directions that are in alignment with values.

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The sources of meaning and a sense of purpose in our lives are highly personal, subjective, and will vary throughout our lives.

Promotion of happiness themes

The following activities and techniques can promote key themes in our lives as sources of meaning (Ivtzan at al., 2016):

• Support others (and receive others’ support) by joining clubs – strengthening bonds and building relationships .
• Share feelings, desires, hopes, goals, successes, and failures with a close friend or significant other to increase intimacy .
• Focus outside yourself on causes, pursuits, and responsibilities to self-transcend .
• Pursue goals and strive for achievement in areas aligned with your values.
• Become comfortable in who you are. Feel the satisfaction of meaning by practicing self-acceptance .
• Express and experience respect and fairness .
• Obtaining materialistic desires can be significant and meaningful for some.
• Working towards professional goals can be purposeful for many.
• Pursuit of pleasure and happiness brings meaning and purpose to many but can be short lived.

Reflect on your sources of meaning

Having shared the above list with your client, ask them to:

• Rank on a sheet of paper their personal sources of meaning (italics above).
• Review which ones are central and most influential.
• Reflect on the opportunities to strengthen the ones that rank less highly.

The following tools and techniques are taken from our Positive Psychology Toolkit© and can support your work with clients in their search for purpose and meaning. The exercises are briefly explained, and can be access with a subscription to the Toolkit, which contains over 400 useful tools.

Living a meaningful life can be facilitated by a greater awareness of core values and the thoughts behind them. The insights provided by understanding personal values can help regain a sense of meaning to improve motivation.

Values represent what we consider essential and what we live for in life. They combine both the core psychological needs of the self and society’s norms.

Work with your client to identify what is most valuable to them before they commit to action; for example, being creative, learning, or showing compassion to others.

The Value Cards group exercise provides 42 values (plus some blanks) that can be cut out to form a deck of cards.

Ask each person in the group to:

• Lay the value cards out in front of you.
• Study and reflect on each one.
• Identify the five cards that best represent your core values.
• If comfortable, share your core values with others in the group to see what each person has chosen.
• Once completed, select the card that represents your strongest  value.
• Explain to another person in the group why it is your strongest value and offer examples (enjoy this celebration of successes).
• Select another value that you would like to live into more and discuss with another person in the group.
• Select and share your core  value with the group.

Life domains

Some values are specific to life domains. For example, productivity may be more suited to our professional life and compassion in our home life; as our domains change throughout our lives, so too can our values.

A Values Vision Board can provide an excellent visual means for clients to become more aware and connect to their values.

• Create a vision board, using pictures cut from magazines and stuck to paper or software such as Powerpoint or Keynote.
• Try grouping the images by domain or in order of overall life values.
• Work on it through feeling rather than rational thinking, with no goals in mind.
• Share your thoughts about the vision board with the therapist or a close friend.
• Place the vision board somewhere it can be seen daily. Regularly return to the board to see if values have shifted and whether life is still balanced with the core values.

Emotion and goal-driven behavior

Despite the importance of our values, they can easily be ignored or even avoided.

Powerful emotions often overtake our values in directing our behavior. We fear writing the book we have always wanted or doubt our ability to commit to a relationship.

While goals can be vital to meeting our long-term plans, they can cause us to lose sight of what is important. We may be so focused on finding a partner, owning a house, or starting a family that we lose sight of enjoying life and building a group of friends.

The Values-Based Goal Setting exercise can help translate values into committed action.

Ask the client to:

• Choose a life domain, for example, parenting, relationship, work, etc.
• Think about what you would like to change in that domain.
• Consider why it is essential to make that change.
• Write down beside each reason what value it underpins, for example, work/life balance, love, etc.
• Use the SMART acronym (specific, meaningful, adaptive, realistic, time-framed) to translate these values into concrete goals.
• Review regularly to confirm that these are your goals (not someone else’s) and that your core values remain unchanged.

Shifting and replacing values

Near-death experiences are frequently associated with a re-assessment of a person’s values, including increased concern for others, an appreciation for life, and a decrease in materialism.

Considering our mortality (while challenging) can improve our awareness of what is genuinely important.

The My Gravestone exercise is a powerful tool for reevaluating how we spend our time on Earth. If appropriate to the client’s circumstances, ask your client to:

• Imagine their life is over.
• Using the shape of a tombstone, write out their name, birth date, etc.
• Write a couple of sentences or phrases that capture how they would like to be remembered and how they would like to have spent their time.

This is an extremely difficult exercise for many and should only be performed if the client is ready and willing to cope with the emotions that may arise.

A near-death experience, serious illness, separation, or loss of a loved one can all shake our sense of who we are and force us to reevaluate our core values, life purpose, and sense of meaning.

Indeed, research on trauma survivors has observed post-traumatic growth and the capacity to extract meaning from adversity (Routledge & Juhl, 2010).

17 Tools To Encourage Meaningful, Value-Aligned Living

This 17 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises [PDF] pack contains our best exercises for helping others discover their purpose and live more fulfilling, value-aligned lives.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Our Masterclass on Meaning and Valued Living© provides an intuitive and accessible way to apply positive psychology.

This excellent online program is for therapists, psychologists, counselors, coaches, and practitioners who want to help their clients find meaning and discover their values, connecting them to their ‘why’ so that they can bear the ‘how.’

if you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others discover meaning, this collection contains 17 validated meaning tools for practitioners. Use them to help others choose directions for their lives in alignment with what is truly important to them.

The meaning we attach to our self, the world around us, and our role within it form our narrative. Our purpose – our aim and goals – motivates the activities that take us through it.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that both meaning and purpose are vital to our wellbeing as well as crucial to who we are.

If we accept the existentialists’ view, then we are free to lead a life according to our values, assign a meaning to what we see as vital, and pursue a unique purpose.

As Sartre points out, this realization may begin with anguish and spiral to a sense of vertiginous nausea before we act. After all, it is like being dropped at a cliff’s edge, without the option of going back and an uncertain future ahead.

Instead, we must choose our values and the meaning we assign to who we are, how we live, and what we do. Our goals are personal, and we must decide whether to follow them or let them drift out of sight.

But failing to act authentically and live according to the meaning and purpose we have chosen would result in a less-well-lived life. So, try the exercises within this article – if only to better understand who you are, your core values, and your place in your surroundings – and explore potential yet to be written.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free .

• Camus, A. (1975). The myth of Sisyphus . London: Penguin Books.
• Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2015). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook . New York: Psychology Press.
• Heidegger, M. (2013). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Malden: Blackwell. (Original work published in 1927 and translated in 1962)
• Hicks, J. A., & King, L. A. (2007). Meaning in life and seeing the big picture: Positive affect and global focus. Cognition & Emotion , 21 (7), 1577–1584.
• Huo, J.-Y., Wang, X.-Q., Steger, M. F., Ge, Y., Wang, Y.-C., Liu, M.-F., & Ye, B.-J. (2019). Implicit meaning in life: The assessment and construct validity of implicit meaning in life and relations with explicit meaning in life and depression. The Journal of Positive Psychology , 15 (4), 500–518.
• Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T., Hefferon, K., & Worth, P. (2016). Second wave positive psychology: Embracing the dark side of life . London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
• Kaufmann, W. (1976). The portable Nietzsch e. London: Penguin Books
• Heintzelman, S. J. (2018). Eudaimonia in the contemporary science of subjective well-being: Psychological well-being, self-determination, and meaning in life. In E. Diener, S. Oishi, & L. Tay (Eds.), Handbook of well-being . Salt Lake City, UT: DEF.
• Heintzelman, S. J., & King, L. A. (2015). Meaning in life and intuition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 110 (3), 477–492.
• Lee, C. S., Hwang, Y. K., & Jang, H. Y. (2018). Moderating effect of growth mindset on the relationship between attitude toward tourism and meaning in life. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics , 120 (6), 5523–5540.
• Nietzsche, F. (1911). Beyond good and evil  (H. Zimmern, Trans.). Edinburgh: Darrien Press.
• Routledge, C., & Juhl, J. (2010). When death thoughts lead to death fears: Mortality salience increases death anxiety for individuals who lack meaning in life. Cognition & Emotion , 24 (5), 848–854.
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2018). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness . New York: Guilford Press.
• Sartre, J. (1964). Being and nothingness: An essay in phenomenological ontolog y. New York: Citadel Press.
• Smith, J. A. (2018). How to find your purpose in life. Greater Good Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2020, from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_find_your_purpose_in_life
• Steger, M. F. (2009). Meaning in life. In S. J. Lopez (Ed.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 679–687). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Warnock, M. (1970). Existentialism . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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What our readers think.

We obviously don’t exist in a vacuum so we have a stack of existing phenomena to analyse and interpret. Emanuel Kant said “Two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence …. the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

Excellent Article. The way ‘ meaning’ and ‘Purpose’ is differentiated is giving clarity to many who get caught in a hazy situation.Purpose is constant and meaning may shift along the journey of life.Purpose is Values driven and Meaning is Actions driven. Enjoyed a lot

Excellent article. I especially liked the differentiation of “meaning” and “purpose” and ways to explore these and become more self-aware. Such poignancy and a great invitation for a deeply meaningful life.

Excellent article. I loved the included YouTube video and funnily enough this is a practice (visualizing myself “zoneing out”- like in the video) I use to ground myself. Refreshing 🙂

The term “existentialism” was given by Catholic existence philosopher Gabriel Marcel to Jean-Paul Sartre’s version of existence philosophy. Nietzsche is not an existentialist, rather, a vitalist. Kierkegaard preceded him and has more existential themes later philosophers like Heidegger built on. “Existentialism” was later associated with Sartre and his followers with “existential phenomenology” being more Heidegger’s suit.

Meaning is objective for Husserl insofar as the laws of logic, morality, and mathematics are independent of the human mind.

Wow, what an insert to capture. I was in a Ministry meeting last night and it was the first one. I listened to several of the ladies say they have no idea of their purpose. So to read this today is a Godsend to share in the next group. This is so profound and just in learning to live.

Thanks for this — especially meaningful at this time of year, in this year. I shared The Blue Dot video to my FB page. But how can we download and share your essay?

Glad you liked the article! Unfortunately, we don’t currently have a download button for our posts, but if you hit ‘Yes’ on the ‘Did you find this article useful?’ button (near the reference list), a range of sharing options will appear. 🙂

– Nicole | Community Manager

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Unravelling life’s origin: five key breakthroughs from the past five years

Associate professor, Dublin City University

PhD Student in Astrobiology, Dublin City University

Disclosure statement

Seán Jordan receives funding from European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 1101114969) and from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI Pathway award 22/PATH-S/10692). He is affiliated with the Origin of Life Early-career Network (OoLEN).

Louise Gillet de Chalonge receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 1101114969). She is affiliated with the Origin of Life Early-career Network (OoLEN).

Dublin City University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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There is still so much we don’t understand about the origin of life on Earth.

The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ingredients of a living cell. Water, energy, and a few essential elements are the prerequisites for cells to emerge. However, the exact details of how this happens remain a mystery.

Recent research has focused on trying to recreate in the lab the chemical reactions that constitute life as we know it, in conditions plausible for early Earth (around 4 billion years ago). Experiments have grown in complexity, thanks to technological progress and a better understanding of what early Earth conditions were like.

However, far from bringing scientists together and settling the debate, the rise of experimental work has led to many contradictory theories. Some scientists think that life emerged in deep-sea hydrothermal vents , where the conditions provided the necessary energy. Others argue that hot springs on land would have provided a better setting because they are more likely to hold organic molecules from meteorites. These are just two possibilities which are being investigated.

Here are five of the most remarkable discoveries over the last five years.

Reactions in early cells

What energy source drove the chemical reactions at the origin of life? This is the mystery that a research team in Germany has sought to unravel. The team delved into the feasibility of 402 reactions known to create some of the essential components of life, such as nucleotides (a building block of DNA and RNA). They did this using some of the most common elements that could have been found on the early Earth.

These reactions, present in modern cells, are also believed to be the core metabolism of LUCA, the last universal common ancestor , a single-cell, bacterium-like organism.

For each reaction, they calculated the changes in free energy, which determines if a reaction can go forward without other external sources of energy. What is fascinating is that many of these reactions were independent of external influences like adenosine triphosphate , a universal source of energy in living cells.

The synthesis of life’s fundamental building blocks didn’t need an external energy boost: it was self-sustaining.

Volcanic glass

Life relies on molecules to store and convey information. Scientists think that RNA (ribonucleic acid) strands were precursors to DNA in fulfilling this role, since their structure is more simple.

The emergence of RNA on our planet has long confused researchers. However, some progress has been made recently. In 2022, a team of collaborators in the US generated stable RNA strands in the lab. They did it by passing nucleotides through volcanic glass. The strands they made were long enough to store and transfer information.

Volcanic glass was present on the early Earth, thanks to frequent meteorite impacts coupled with a high volcanic activity. The nucleotides used in the study are also believed to have been present at that time in Earth’s history. Volcanic rocks could have facilitated the chemical reactions that assembled nucleotides into RNA chains.

• Hydrothermal vents

Carbon fixation is a process in which CO₂ gains electrons. It is necessary to build the molecules that form the basis of life.

An electron donor is necessary to drive this reaction. On the early Earth, H₂ could have been the electron donor. In 2020, a team of collaborators showed that this reaction could spontaneously occur and be fuelled by environmental conditions similar to deep-sea alkaline hydrothermal vents in the early ocean. They did this using microfluidic technology , devices that manipulate tiny volumes of liquids to perform experiments by simulating alkaline vents.

This pathway is strikingly similar to how many modern bacterial and archaeal cells (single-cell organisms without a nucleas) operate.

The Krebs Cycle

In modern cells, carbon fixation is followed by a cascade of chemical reactions that assemble or break down molecules, in intricate metabolic networks that are driven by enzymes.

But scientists are still debating how metabolic reactions unfolded before the emergence and evolution of those enzymes. In 2019, a team from the University of Strasbourg in France made a breakthrough . They showed that ferrous iron, a type of iron that was abundant in early Earth’s crust and ocean, could drive nine out of 11 steps of the Krebs Cycle . The Krebs Cycle is a biological pathway present in many living cells.

Here, ferrous iron acted as the electron donor for carbon fixation, which drove the cascade of reactions. The reactions produced all five of the universal metabolic precursors – five molecules that are fundamental across various metabolic pathways in all living organisms.

Building blocks of ancient cell membranes

Understanding the formation of life’s building blocks and their intricate reactions is a big step forward in comprehending the emergence of life.

However, whether they unfolded in hot springs on land or in the deep sea, these reactions would not have gone far without a cell membrane. Cell membranes play an active role in the biochemistry of a primitive cell and its connection with the environment.

Modern cell membranes are mostly composed of compounds called phospholipids, which contain a hydrophilic head and two hydrophobic tails. They are structured in bilayers, with the hydrophilic heads pointing outward and the hydrophobic tails pointing inward.

Research has shown that some components of phospholipids, such as the fatty acids that constitute the tails, can self-assemble into those bilayer membranes in a range of environmental conditions . But were these fatty acids present on the early Earth? Recent research from Newcastle University, UK gives an interesting answer. Researchers recreated the spontaneous formation of these molecules by combining H₂-rich fluids, likely present in ancient alkaline hydrothermal vents, with CO₂-rich water resembling the early ocean.

This breakthrough aligns with the hypothesis that stable fatty acid membranes could have originated in alkaline hydrothermal vents, potentially progressing into living cells. The authors speculated that similar chemical reactions might unfold in the subsurface oceans of icy moons, which are thought to have hydrothermal vents similar to terrestrial ones.

Each of these discoveries adds a new piece to the puzzle of the origin of life. Regardless of which ones are proved correct, contrasting theories are fuelling the search for answers. As Charles Darwin wrote :

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science for they often long endure: but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

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• Origins of Life
• Charles Darwin
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Microsoft taps Sanctuary AI for general-purpose robot research

Microsoft, it seems, is hedging its bets when it comes to general-purpose robotics AI. At the end of February, the Windows maker spearheaded a massive $675 million Series B in Bay Area-based Figure. Today, the tech giant announced a collaboration with Figure competitor Sanctuary AI, best known for its humanoid robot, Phoenix.

The Sanctuary partnership really gets to the heart of Microsoft’s interest in the category: artificial general intelligence. It’s a concept that comes up a lot when discussing humanoid robots -- too often, I would argue, given the state of things. While such breakthroughs are likely several years off (at least), they’re required for humanoid robots to reach the long promised “general-purpose status.”

In essence, that means robots that can learn and reason like humans. That represents a potential quantum leap for robotic capabilities, which have traditionally been limited to one or two tasks. The humanoid form factor opens these systems to a far broader range of motion than single-purpose systems, but they will ultimately need the intelligence to match.

“Creating systems that think like, and understand us, is one of the biggest civilization-level technical problems and opportunities that we will ever face,” Sanctuary co-founder and CEO Geordie Rose notes. “A challenge like this requires the best global minds to work together. We’re excited to be working with Microsoft to unlock the next generation of AI models that will power general-purpose robots.”

Such a partnership deepens Microsoft’s commitment to AI development and delivers a partner who can design hardware to those specifications. Sanctuary has been operating in the space for some time now, and recently scored a pilot partnership with Magna , which will bring the latest version of Phoenix to car plants.

All told, Sanctuary robots “have been tested across 400 customer-defined tasks across 15 different industries.” Of course, we’re still in the very early stages of all of this.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates spoke about his own interest in humanoids earlier this year. Neither Sanctuary nor Figure got a mention, though he did spend some time discussing competitors Agility and Apptronik.

Microsoft isn’t alone in hedging its bets in the category. OpenAI (another Microsoft partner) has made its own investments in both Figure and competitor 1X.

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Collaborative Robotics is prioritizing ‘human problem solving’ over humanoid forms

It is, after all, a lot easier to generate press for robots that look and move like humans. For a while now, Collaborative Robotics founder Brad Porter has eschewed robots that look like people. As the two-year-old startup’s name implies, Collaborative Robotics (Cobot for short) is interested in the ways in which humans and robots will collaborate, moving forward.

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Last November, Adam D'Angelo found himself at the epicenter of one of the biggest controversies in the tech industry. The board of OpenAI — the $80 billion startup leading the AI bandwagon — had abruptly booted its CEO, Sam Altman, only to reinstate him just days later. D'Angelo was on the board that dismissed Altman... and he was (and remains) on the board that brought him back in.

Why losing NBA media rights would be 'a big negative' for Warner Bros. Discovery

Warner Bros. Discovery could lose its NBA media rights package, which expires at the end of next season.

The Oracle of Omaha warns about AI: What Buffett said at Berkshire

Warren Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that he has mixed feelings about artificial intelligence — in a tone he's expressed before.

5 things to know from the weekend in MLB: Dodgers trounce Braves, Phillies' Trea Turner injured and more

Here's what you might've missed from this weekend's action across the league.

The NBA Loser Lineup: Paolo Banchero, Magic on the rise in fantasy and reality despite playoff exit

Basketball analyst Dan Titus breaks down what the teams and stars who were booted from the NBA Playoffs must do to remain in good fantasy standing next season.

Lando Norris gets long-awaited first win at 2024 Miami Grand Prix

Lando Norris nabs first race win at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.

Shohei Ohtani punctuates Dodgers sweep of Braves with 2 home runs to tie MLB lead

Ohtani tagged Braves ace Max Fried for a two-run shot in the first inning, then hit a solo shot in the eighth as the Dodgers prevailed in a battle of NL favorites.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vows student Gaza protester demands will 'NEVER' be met. Here's how we got here.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a social media post Sunday that the University of Texas would not meet the demands of student protesters.

Jack Dorsey departs Bluesky board

Bluesky’s most prominent backer has left its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking him to explain his departure.

J.J. Watt opens door to play for Texans, former teammate DeMeco Ryans

"Don't call unless you absolutely need it, but, if you ever do call, I'll be there."

Disney steps up as Big Tech steps back: What to know this week

With the peak of first quarter earnings season in the rearview, stocks got back to their winning ways last week ahead of a slower calendar for corporate and economic news.

Kelly Clarkson's comfy-chic home line is up to 80% off at Wayfair's Way Day sale — prices start at just $26

Treat your living space to a makeover with fabulous finds from the pop icon's curated furniture and decor collection.

NBA Playoffs: Magic vs. Cavaliers Game 7 updates, score, highlights, analysis

The Magic and Cavs are giving us the only Game 7 of the playoffs so far.

The best aluminum polish of 2024

Aluminum polish is great for restoring and protecting metal surfaces. It can be used on wheels, exhaust tips, and other metal surfaces that need cleaning.