Mulling over such a notion, I contemplated its ramifications again while considering personal resolutions. Although happiness is certainly my preferred motive for behavioral reinforcement, I considered recent research findings and subsequently asked myself: Do I yearn for a happy life or one that is meaningful?
While acknowledging that such variables are intertwined, Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Vohs, Jennifer Aaker and Emily Garbinsky differentiated between happiness and meaningfulness in their survey-based study.
In musing that happiness aligns with one obtaining a sense of gratification during the present time while meaningfulness is characterized by cultural background and assimilates past and future, the researchers found happiness and meaningfulness were associated with being a taker or a giver, respectively.
Particularly, while one’s focus on contributing to the well-being of others enhanced meaningfulness, such coincided with reductions in ratings of happiness. Furthermore, concerns about defining one’s personal identity aligned positively with meaningfulness, yet negatively with happiness.
Such findings resonate with the works of the late psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, who survived staggeringly gruesome circumstances as a concentration camp prisoner during the Holocaust.
In his classic book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which recounts his survival, Frankl documents how one can derive a sense of personal meaning during adverse times that tax one’s will and perseverance.
According to Frankl, personal meaning can be acquired through creativity or completing a constructive endeavor, through undergoing an experience or gaining the acquaintance of another and through the outlooks we occupy when distress is inevitable.
Attention can also be given to the late existential psychologist Rollo May and his work, “Man’s Search for Himself.” Alluding to T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men,” May discusses how emptiness served as people’s primary psychological concern during the mid-20th century. Moreover, May states that emptiness emerges from individuals’ personal sense of incapability of enhancing their livelihoods and society in meaningful ways.
Concerning our present culture, which ceaselessly prioritizes instant gratification, it can reasonably be asserted that humankind is now trying to fill a similar void-like emptiness with digitalized self-absorption (i.e., boastful blogs, habitual Facebook posts, endless Tweets, innumerable selfies, etc.). Materialism, too, unremittingly continues to stake its claim on our mentalities.
Perhaps this year, valuable and self-defining experiences may be inherent if we strive for meaningfulness and challenge ourselves to prioritize selflessness and compassion for others.
Such an objective can be accomplished in multiple ways, varying from offering assistance to those in genuine need, visiting ill and lonely relatives and individuals or even occasionally spending an hour or so completing memorable projects that may prove advantageous to others’ well-being.
After all, given that a meaningful life is tangible, happiness will assuredly emerge along the way.
Keith Huffman is a first-year doctoral student in counselor education.
