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There's more to life than being happy

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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)
Title:
There's more to life than being happy
Speaker:
Emily Esfahani Smith
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
12:18

English subtitles

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