Meaning

People chase happiness. Self-help books promise it. Ads sell it. The entire architecture of modern life seems designed to maximize it.

And yet - happy people aren’t necessarily satisfied with their lives, and satisfied people aren’t necessarily happy.

Meaning is something different. And it might matter more.

Happiness vs. meaning

Happiness is a feeling. It’s pleasurable, in the moment, and fleeting. You feel it when things go well, when needs are met, when life is comfortable.

Meaning is a sense. It’s deeper, more durable, and often arrives through difficulty. You feel it when you’re connected to something larger than yourself, when your actions matter, when your life has coherence.

Research shows they’re related but distinct:

You can be happy without feeling your life is meaningful
You can find life meaningful while being unhappy
Meaningful activities often involve stress, sacrifice, and difficulty
Purely pleasurable activities often feel empty afterward

This matters because chasing happiness directly often backfires. The pursuit of happiness can make you less happy. But pursuing meaning tends to bring happiness as a side effect.

The happiness trap

Why doesn’t chasing happiness work?

Hedonic adaptation. You get used to good things. The new car, the promotion, the relationship - they make you happy at first, then they become normal. You need the next thing to feel the same boost. It’s a treadmill.

The arrival fallacy. “I’ll be happy when…” But when you arrive, there’s always a new when. Happiness as a destination doesn’t exist.

Comparison. Happiness is relative. No matter how good your life is, someone’s is better. If your happiness depends on having more, you’ll never have enough.

Emptiness. A life optimized purely for pleasure can feel hollow. The absence of struggle is not the presence of meaning.

Meaning as an alternative

Meaning operates differently:

It’s resilient. Meaning can persist through suffering. Viktor Frankl survived concentration camps partly by finding meaning in his experience. Meaning doesn’t require things to be good.

It comes from contribution. Meaning usually involves giving, not just receiving. Parents find meaning in sacrifice for children. Workers find meaning in solving problems for others. Meaning requires mattering to something beyond yourself.

It requires coherence. Meaning comes from your life making sense as a story. Your past, present, and future connect. Your actions align with your values. Things fit together.

It handles difficulty. Meaningful activities are often hard. Raising children is meaningful and exhausting. Building something valuable is meaningful and stressful. Meaning doesn’t avoid difficulty - it reframes it.

Sources of meaning

Research (particularly from psychologist Roy Baumeister) suggests meaning comes from:

Sense of purpose. Having goals, direction, a reason to do things. Not necessarily grand purpose - just something you’re moving toward.

Values. Living in alignment with what you believe matters. Acting with integrity. Having a moral framework.

Self-worth. Feeling that you matter, that you have value, that your existence makes a difference.

Efficacy. Believing your actions have impact. That you can affect outcomes. That you’re not powerless.

Connection. Belonging to something larger. Relationships, community, causes, traditions. Being part of a story that extends beyond your individual life.

Making meaning

Meaning isn’t handed to you. In a world without inherent meaning (and there’s good reason to think we live in one), meaning has to be constructed.

This sounds bleak, but it’s actually empowering. You get to decide what matters. Not the universe, not society, not your parents - you.

Some approaches:

Connect your actions to something larger. Even mundane work can feel meaningful when connected to a bigger picture. The janitor at NASA isn’t just cleaning floors - they’re helping put people in space. Reframe your work.

Contribute. Do things for others. Help people. Build things that outlast you. Create. Meaning flows from giving more than from receiving.

Accept difficulty as part of the package. Stop expecting meaningful things to be easy. The struggle is often where the meaning lives. Parenting is hard. Creative work is hard. Deep relationships are hard. That’s not a problem - that’s the price of admission.

Create coherence. Make your life story make sense. This doesn’t mean lying to yourself. It means finding the thread that connects your experiences, even the painful ones. What did you learn? How did you grow? How does your past inform your present?

Choose your commitments. Meaning requires commitment. You can’t have deep meaning while keeping all options open. Pick something - a project, a relationship, a cause - and actually commit to it.

Meaning and suffering

One of the most counterintuitive findings: meaning and suffering are linked.

People often report finding great meaning in difficult experiences. Illness, loss, failure - these can become sources of profound meaning.

Not because suffering is good. But because suffering demands something from you. It forces growth, connection, reevaluation. It strips away the trivial and reveals what matters.

This doesn’t mean you should seek out suffering. It means you don’t have to fear it as the enemy of a good life. Difficulty can be meaningful. Ease often isn’t.

The question to ask

Instead of “am I happy?” try asking “is my life meaningful?”

Does your life have purpose, even small purpose? Are you living according to your values? Do you feel connected to something larger? Are you contributing, not just consuming?

A meaningful life might include a lot of difficulty. It might not feel pleasurable day to day. But it will feel worthwhile.

And “worthwhile” might be a better goal than “happy.”

Related: Purpose (finding direction), Values (what actually matters), Identity (who you’re becoming)