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I used to think

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the whole purpose of life

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was pursuing happiness.

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Everyone said the path
to happiness was success,

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so I searched for that ideal job,

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that perfect boyfriend,
that beautiful apartment.

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But instead of ever feeling fulfilled,

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I felt anxious and adrift,

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and I wasn't alone.

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My friends, they struggled with this too.

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Eventually I decided to go
to graduate school

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for positive psychology to learn
what truly makes people happy,

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but what I discovered there
changed my life.

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The data showed that chasing happiness

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can make people unhappy,

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and what really struck me was this:

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the suicide rate has been rising
around the world,

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and it recently reached
a 30-year high in America.

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Even though life is getting
objectively better

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by nearly every conceivable standard,

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more people feel hopeless,

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depressed and alone.

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There's an emptiness
gnawing away at people,

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and you don't have to be
clinically depressed to feel it.

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Sooner or later, I think we all wonder,

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is this all there is?

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And according to the research,
what predicts this despair

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is not a lack of happiness.

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It's a lack of something else,

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a lack of having meaning in life.

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But that raised some questions for me.

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Is there more to life than being happy?

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And what's the difference
between being happy

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and having meaning in life?

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Many psychologists define happiness

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as a state of comfort and ease,

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feeling good in the moment.

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Meaning, though, is deeper.

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The renowned psychologist
Martin Seligman

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says meaning comes from belonging to
and serving something beyond yourself,

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and from developing the best within you.

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Our culture is obsessed with happiness,

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but I came to see that seeking meaning
is the more fulfilling path,

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and the studies show that people
who have meaning in life,

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they're more resilient,

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they do better in school and at work,

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and they even live longer.

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So this all made me wonder,

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how can we each live more meaningfully?

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To find out, I spent five years
interviewing hundreds of people

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and reading through thousands
of pages of psychology,

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neuroscience and philosophy.

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Bringing it all together,

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I found that there are what I call

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four pillars of a meaningful life,

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and we can each create lives of meaning

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by building some or all
of these pillars in our lives.

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The first pillar is belonging.

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Belonging comes
from being in relationships

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where you're valued
for who you are intrinsically

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and where you value others as well,

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but some groups and relationships
deliver a cheap form of belonging.

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You're valued for what you believe,

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for who you hate,

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not for who you are.

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True belonging springs from love.

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It lives in moments among individuals,

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and it's a choice.

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You can choose to cultivate
belonging with others.

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Here's an example.

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Each morning, my friend Jonathan
buys a newspaper

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from the same street vendor in New York.

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They don't just conduct
a transaction, though.

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They take a moment to slow down,

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talk, and treat each other like humans.

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But one time, Jonathan
didn't have the right change,

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and the vendor said,

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"Don't worry about it."

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But Jonathan insisted on paying,

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so he went to the store

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and bought something he didn't need

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to make change.

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But when he gave the money to the vendor,

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the vendor drew back.

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He was hurt.

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He was trying to do something kind,

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but Jonathan had rejected him.

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I think we all reject people in small ways
like this without realizing it.

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I do.

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I'll walk by someone I know
and barely acknowledge them.

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I'll check my phone
when someone's talking to me.

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These acts devalue others.

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They make them feel
invisible and unworthy.

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But when you lead with love,
you create a bond

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that lifts each of you up.

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For many people, belonging
is the most essential source of meaning,

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those bonds of family and friends.

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For others, the key to meaning
is the second pillar: purpose.

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Now, finding your purpose
is not the same thing

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as finding that job that makes you happy.

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Purpose is less about what you want
than about what you give.

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A hospital custodian told me
her purpose is healing sick people.

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Many parents tell me,

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"My purpose is raising my children."

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The key to purpose is using your strengths

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to serve others.

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Of course, for many of us,
that happens through work.

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That's how we contribute and feel needed.

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But that also means that issues
like disengagement at work,

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unemployment,

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low labor force participation,

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these aren't just economic problems,
they're existential ones too.

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Without something worthwhile to do,

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people flounder.

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Of course, you don't have
to find purpose at work,

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but purpose gives you
something to live for,

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some why that drives you forward.

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The third pillar of meaning
is also about stepping beyond yourself,

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but in a completely different way:

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transcendance.

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Transcendent states are those rare moments
when you're lifted above

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the hustle and bustle of daily life,

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your sense of self fades away,

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and you feel connected
to a higher reality.

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For one person I talked to,
transcendence came from seeing art.

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For another person, it was at church.

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For me, I'm a writer,

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and it happens through writing.

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Sometimes I get so in the zone

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that I lose all sense of time and place.

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And these transcendent
experiences can change you.

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One study had students look up
at 200-feet tall eucalyptus trees

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for one minute,

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but afterwards they felt
less self-centered

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and they even behaved more generously
when given the chance to help someone.

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Belonging, purpose, transcendence.

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Now, the fourth pillar of meaning,

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I've found, tends to surprise people.

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The fourth pillar is storytelling,

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the story you tell yourself
about yourself.

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Creating a narrative from the events
of your life brings clarity.

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It helps you understand
how you became you.

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But we don't always realize
that we're the authors of our stories

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and can change the way we're telling them.

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Your life isn't just a list of events.

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You can edit, interpret,
and retell your story

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even as you're constrained by the facts.

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I met a young man named Emeka

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who'd been paralyzed playing football.

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After his injury, Emeka told himself,

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"My life was great playing football,

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but now look at me."

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People who tell stories like this --

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"My life was good. Now it's bad." --

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they tend to be more
anxious and depressed.

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And that was Emeka for a while.

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But with time, he started
to weave a different story.

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His new story was,

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"Before my injury,
my life was purposeless.

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I partied a lot and was
a pretty selfish guy.

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But my injury made me realize
I could be a better man."

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That edit to his story
changed Emeka's life.

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After telling the new story to himself,

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Emeka started mentoring kids,

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and he discovered what his purpose was:

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serving others.

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The psychologist Dan McAdams
calls this a redemptIve story,

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where the bad is redeemed by the good.

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People leading meaningful
lives, he's found,

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they tend to tell stories
about their lives

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defined by redemption, growth and love.

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But what makes people
change their stories?

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Some people get help from a therapist,

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but you can do it on your own too

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just by reflecting
on your life thoughtfully,

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how your defining experiences shaped you,

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what you lost, what you gained.

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That's what Emeka did.

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You won't change your story overnight.

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It could take years and be painful.

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After all, we've all suffered,
and we all struggle.

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But embracing those painful memories
can lead to new insights and wisdom,

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to finding that good that sustains you.

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Belonging, purpose,
transcendence, storytelling:

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those are the four pillars of meaning.

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When I was younger,

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I was lucky enough to be surrounded
by all of the pillars.

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My parents ran a Sufi meeting house

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from our home in Montreal.

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Sufism is a spiritual practice
associated with the Whirling Dervishes

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and the poet Rumi.

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Twice a week, Sufis would come to our home

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to meditate, drink Persian tea,
and share stories.

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Their practice also involved serving
all of creation through small acts of love,

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which meant being kind
even when people wronged you.

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But it gave them a purpose,

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to reign in the ego.

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Eventually, I left home for college

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and without the daily grounding
of Sufism in my life,

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I felt unmoored

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and I started searching for those things
that make life worth living.

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That's what set me on this journey.

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Looking back, I now recognize
that the Sufi house

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had a real culture of meaning.

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The pillars were part of the architecture,

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and the presence of the pillars
helped us all live more deeply.

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Of course, the same principle applies

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in other strong communities as well,

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good ones and bad ones.

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Gangs, cults:

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these are cultures of meaning
that use the pillars and give people

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something to live and die for,

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but that's exactly why we as a society

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must offer better alternatives.

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We need to build these pillars
within our families

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and our institutions to help people
become their best selves.

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But living a meaningful life takes work.

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It's an ongoing process.

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As each day goes by,
we're constantly creating our lives,

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adding to our story,

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and sometimes we can get off track.

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Whenever that happens to me,

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I remember a powerful experience
I had with my father.

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Several months after
I graduated from college,

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my dad had a massive heart attack
that should have killed him.

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He survived, and when I asked him
what was going through his mind

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as he faced death,

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he said all he could think about
was needing to live

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so he could be there
for my brother and me,

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and this gave him the will
to fight for life.

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When he went under anesthesia
for emergency surgery,


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instead of counting backwards from 10,

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he repeated our names like a mantra.

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He wanted our names to be
the last words he spoke on Earth

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if he died.

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My dad is a carpenter and a Sufi.

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It's a humble life but a good life.

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Lying there facing death,
he had a reason to live:

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love.

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His sense of belonging within his family,

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his purpose as a dad,

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his transcendent meditation,
repeating our names,

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these, he says, are the reasons
why he survived.

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That's the story he tells himself.

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That's the power of meaning.

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Happiness comes and goes,

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but when life is really good

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and when things are really bad,

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having meaning gives you
something to hold onto.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)