Many people are struggling today with ‘meaninglessness’—a pervading sense that their lives lack purpose, that there’s no real reason for them being here other than to work, pay bills, raise children, and enjoy the occasional take away meal, only to pass away at a reasonably old age. (Note that throughout this article, I will use the terms ‘purpose’ and ‘meaning’ interchangeably.)

I’ve written about the contemporary ‘crisis of meaning’ in other articles and books over the years, although as I continue to reflect and mature, I see that my answers to the perennial question “How do I find my purpose?” have always fallen short. I suspect that the answer I present in this article will also fall short, no matter how refined I believe it to be. Still, I consider it a better attempt than previous ones.

In my early twenties, I was fixated on the notion that finding your purpose was very much about reconnecting with childhood hobbies and passions. In fact, it was the twentieth century psychoanalyst Carl Jung who encouraged us to consider the following question: “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.” I still agree with Jung, although in my earlier years I was too quick to jump the gun, concluding that one’s childhood passions and hobbies alone, were one’s purpose—that writing, to offer a personal example, was solely what I should do with my life; that I should give it all up to pursue writing. Note, however, that according to Jung, what one did as a child that made time fly merely represents the “key” to one’s earthly pursuits, not the treasure chest, so to speak. One’s purpose, in other words, lies inside whatever the key unlocks.

Why Meaning Matters

A sense of purpose (that imbues our lives with meaning) comes down to feeling like we’re meant to be here, like we have a particular task, or series of tasks to achieve, a duty to fulfil, before we die. Without it, what do we have to fall back on to catch us when nihilistic thoughts creep in halfway through the night? And what will stabilise us through life’s inevitable ups and downs? Finding meaning may not matter too much when the cheesecake “just hits” or when we’re enjoying the highest highs of a new relationship—when we’re drowning in pleasure and endorphins, cloaked, baked and submerged in life’s wonders; but what about when our predicament is impossibly difficult, when the suffering is relentless and unceasing?

How might we get out of bed to clean our father’s home after his tragic and unexpected passing? How do we find the energy to catch the bus to our second job after having just finished a shift at our first one, knowing that we can’t collapse in bed because there’s no one else to rely on, though three young children who rely on us? What do we do when diagnosed with a terminal illness? How, in other words, do we manage the winter seasons, when everything we thought we knew about the world proved false, when we’re shaken to our very core? To quote Jung again, what will “support us when nothing supports us”? For it is during the most difficult moments in our lives that the question of meaning becomes primary.

Suffering and the significance of meaning are bedfellows.

Heavily influenced by his time in nazi concentration camps, the twentieth century psychiatrist Viktor Frankl came to believe that those who lived for someone or something greater than themselves—those who, as he described it, had a “will to meaning”—were mentally far better off than those without. In his works, he noted that many holocaust survivors were only able to keep going because of their sense of meaning, despite the ostensible arbitrariness of the suffering they endured. He later founded a school of therapy termed Logotherapy (etymologically, meaning “healing of the spirit”), helping people find a will to live beyond themselves.

Since time immemorial, it was God that provided meaning to the masses. God brought people together, unifying them under a hierarchy of values that would stabilise and ‘glue’ them. Operating under a Christian worldview, for example—living in order to become more like Christ—would allow a collection of people to work together and hold each other accountable (based upon the values of the Bible), thereby strengthening their community.

 However, with the advent of the enlightenment, people became far more sceptical of divine revelation, objective morality and the very concept of God. This, of course, was both good and bad. There is no question that organised religion has done a lot of damage; but I get the feeling like we’ve thrown out the baby too. This is by no means an original idea. In fact, the philosopher Friedreich Nietzsche predicted that “the death of God”—his metaphor for the ending of a collective value hierarchy—would lead to social and economic collapse; he died in 1900, just under two decades before the Russian Revolution in 1917, and the establishment of the first Communist government.

Whether religious or secular, there is no question that ‘meaning’ is important. It is the safety net that catches us when we fall, when life throws its inevitable punches. It fills us with confidence and stability; it motivates us to do, to be and continue on; it affords us the necessary sense of fulfilment after a good day’s work; it provides answers, and even the antidote to some of life’s biggest questions.

So where has meaning gone?

Why, in the modern world, does it feel like the meaning well has all but dried up?

The Usual Suspects

Materially, we in the west have everything previous generations could have hoped for, and yet we are more anxious and depressed than ever. We can communicate with everyone from anywhere, yet loneliness is increasing—and loneliness is as bad for you as smoking fifteen cigarettes per day! We’re also outrageously overstimulated: Boredom is a thing of the past—which means so is down time, emotional processing and, unfortunately, calm.

Burnt out, lost, anxious, depressed, hopeless, detached—what a time to be alive!

Why are we like this?

What’s going on?

Social Media

Many will put it down to social media of course, and there is no question that social media use correlates strongly, if not causes, mental health issues. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, social media keeps us entertained—like . . . really, really entertained. The neurotransmitter dopamine becomes excited when we perceive potential rewards, providing us with that sweet nectar called motivation.

I describe how dopamine works to my clients by offering the following analogy: Let’s say you’re a very hungry monkey wandering the African jungle alone. You haven’t eaten in days, sleep has been less than satisfactory, predators—whether real or imaginary—loom with every ‘thud’, ‘crack’ and rustle coming from surrounding bushes, and that tranquil stream that quenched the very meaning of thirst now feels like years away.

Things are beginning to look pretty dire…

All of a sudden, you slip on a very old, very mouldy banana. It stinks, it’s rotten, it’s riddled with insects—and you couldn’t be more excited! Why? Because it’s a sure sign that you’re near other bananas; maybe a bunch of bananas; maybe even a whole forest of banana trees! You start feeling . . . what? Yep! You guessed it! Extremely motivated. You start walking faster, your pupils dilate; you’re like a rocket launcher homing-in on its target. Dopamine is flooding your brain and it feels really, really good.

And then . . . you see it, just off in the distance. It’s a miraculous sight: Bubbles and bubbles of yellow and gold. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, the most awe-inspiring, saliva-producing, maybe even libido intensifying banana tree in the world. You sprint on over to the tree—you quirky little monkey, you!—climb up, and start stuffing your face like a prisoner on death row.

Your dopamine system has served you well.

Dopamine remains to some degree, but it has now been largely subverted by another neurotransmitter called Serotonin, which feels like satiation, contentment and a good old fashioned job well done.

Dopamine is meant to keep us alive. It is implicated in behaviours that promote all of our basic needs: Eating, drinking, having sex, socialising etc. But what happens when we overstimulate with dopamine for long periods of time? What happens when we, say for example: Wake up and check our notifications before enjoying a sneaky social media scroll; then make a morning coffee; then watch some porn or read an erotic novel; then listen to a podcast or pump our favourite band in our ears on our way to work; then spend eight hours in front of a computer, engaging in frequent “work breaks” by way of the occasional scroll, coffee or sugary snack from the local café? All this only to return home to watch some television, enjoy a drink or two, scroll some more and then fall asleep—and the following morning, the cycle repeats.

Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.

Imagine if the monkey spent all his days up that tree eating fruit, except the bananas had been injected with methamphetamine.

“Cheap dopamine”, as the ‘cool kids’ describe it—that constant drip of motivation and reward that contemporary life provides—plays a major role in the increasing prevalence of mental health issues. Sadly, what goes up must come down, meaning that the inevitable ‘lull’—the low mood, anxiety or underlying feeling that we are utterly useless time-wasters!—inevitably lies around the corner, waiting for us as soon as we find the courage to turn the iPhone off and lie on our beds, feeling like we’ve done it again…

The mind needs time to process and integrate the various stimuli it receives throughout the day, and it cannot do its job effectively—or, more importantly, healthily—when we’re constantly feeding it without giving it time to rest and “work the backend”, so to speak. But if we can find a way to get some processing time in throughout the day—some down time—not only will we feel much better, we’ll actually require less stimulation to feel motivated. This is why people who successfully recover from addiction oftentimes note a depression (after the initial anxiety) prior to experiencing a slower, calmer, though more sustainable life. No longer do they require alcohol, drugs, sex or, perhaps, adrenaline-fuelled activities like speed racing or base jumping in order to feel something (anything!). Rather, fishing on a Saturday afternoon does the trick (and here I’m reminded of that lovely quote by Tolstoy: “A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour—such is my idea of happiness.”)

I could write an entire book on how the modern world wreaks havoc on and destroys our dopamine system, but thankfully I don’t have to because the American psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke has written something far better than I ever could! Her book Dopamine Nation is brilliant, and I highly recommend it if any of the above has resonated with you.

Artificial Intelligence

Others will blame the crisis of meaning on the rise of artificial intelligence, making an already precarious job market even more so, not to mention the looming existential threat of superintelligence. What we do for work correlates strongly with our sense of fulfilment, our sense of mattering to others and feeling like we matter. Without feeling like we are contributing in some way to society, acting for the betterment of others, acting in accordance with our evolution (as a social species), who—or perhaps, what—are we; and what will we become?

The conversation on artificial intelligence seems to divide many: Some think it would be stupid of us not to push on, encouraged by the potential opportunities and breakthroughs it could provide to healthcare workers and their patients for example, those with terminal illnesses or chronic diseases etc. Others—and I find myself in this latter camp—are nervous about the whole thing.

The Threat of War

Many more will put the contemporary sense of meaninglessness down to the war in the middle east and the rise of right-wing populism. Then maybe others will retaliate, stating that it was, in fact, the far-left’s ostensible authoritarianism that precipitated the rise of the right with conservative leaders providing the antidote.

Chicken or the egg…

            When I’m working with couples, I’ll often interject (when things get heated), reminding both partners that playing “Find the bad guy” will only result in two losers. According to the late couples therapist and founder of Emotional Focused Therapy (EFT) Dr. Sue Johnson, recognising when you’ve fallen into the dance of the “Demon dialogue” is a critical and necessary prerequisite to deescalating an argument, moving hopefully toward healing through understanding and vulnerability.

            I try to avoid the news as much as possible, but when I do find myself sitting under the television at the local medical centre, waiting for my doctor to write me a prescription, I cannot help but tune into the current political rhetoric. I sometimes wonder what it might be like to sit with two opposing political leaders, working with them as if they were a couple hoping to rekindle their relationship. Sadly, it appears that our leaders seem to only want to play “find the bad guy” rather than sing kumbaya…

Environmental Catastrophe; The Cost of Living—The List Goes On

Still others will point out global warming, the continuation of environmental destruction; then others once more will point to the rising cost of living. Clearly, the latent nihilism, the precariousness, the volatility and ominous groundlessness that rests under every jovial interaction between friends emanates from multiple sources! I often ask my dad whether he’s concerned with all of this, and with the age we’re living in more generally. He’ll say that he is, although he’ll be quick to mention that life has never been easy, wars have always ensued and there really hasn’t been anything remotely close to world peace. Of course, he isn’t wrong. He grew up in the sixties smack-bang in the middle of the Cold War and right before the Vietnam War. However, I’m quick to retaliate by pointing out the sheer number of concerns we moderns must attempt to reconcile day in, day out—only some of which I’ve discussed here.

Yet beyond these existential threats, I believe that there is one central piece missing—something so foundational, so necessary, so deeply human, that without it, we will undoubtedly lose ourselves amidst the troubles of our age.

Connection.

What we’ve lost more than anything is the ability to navigate our concerns together, in community—a ‘collective’ nervous system than will catch us when we collapse.

Why You Feel Lost—And, Therefore, Why You Think You Need To Find Your Purpose

I heard the Canadian Clinical Psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson once remark that “We [human beings] are so social that you can punish the most antisocial among us by isolating them.”

Let that sink in for a second…

Moreover, in Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson writes, “Isolation and the potential loss of loving connection is coded by the human brain into a primal panic response… The drama of love is all about this hunger for safe emotional connection, a survival imperative we experience from the cradle to the grave.”

It is impossible to make sense of the vastness of space and the infiniteness of one’s inner landscape. What are we when we really strip everything back and just notice it all—the great mystery of existence? The ineffability of being simultaneously overwhelms, terrifies and inspires us. Unfortunately, we seldom stop to ponder, to take it all in. Living mostly in urban areas, the transcendent can only creep in if we let it, perhaps in a sentence in a book, a movie scene, or the smile of a passing stranger. But for thousands and thousands of years, we could not escape it; the sacred revealed itself when the sun went down every night. It was also in the frequent silences between dialogue long before social media polluted our minds. It lay among the chaos of nature; now straight lines and concrete dampen our view.

God was everywhere.

Now, we have to go out of our way to reconnect with that which is beyond name, concept and form—and that is an existential tragedy, something which I believe lies at the heart of the meaning crisis. It is making us incredibly lonely and displaced.

Why? Because the mystery of being unified us. And now only false idols do.

            Believe me, I’ve felt it too. That is why when my clients open up to me, revealing their souls, I’m no longer surprised by the similarities of their troubles. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in all my years as a counsellor, it’s that we human beings aren’t that different from one another—we “fellow travellers” to quote one of my idols, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Irvin Yalom. Though the themes and content may differ, it is our existential struggle that binds us. We are all mortal, we are all stumbling up the mountain, trying our best to live a good life.

What’s Truly Missing?

Connection is what’s missing—that is my contention.

Happy people rarely think about themselves. They’re focused much more heavily on the needs of others, on their own wellbeing in relation to their friends and family etc., their social milieu. They see themselves as part of a wider ecosystem, in other words. It is only upon the advent of intense self-absorption that anxiety, depression and loneliness, for example, ensue. Of course, sometimes it is necessary to introspect; and other times it is impossible not to. Suffering and tragedy are baked into the human experience. Still, we need others. We need community (common unity). We have been fed—and now seem to believe (based on our actions)—the subtle yet pervading lie that online (solo) interaction can replace in-person contact, and that is hurting us . . . a lot.

I rely heavily on metaphors and analogies when I’m working with someone for two reasons: (1) Because there’s a lot of data to support their efficacy; and (2) because that’s how I talk. One analogy I’ll often use when clients speak of feeling lonely, isolated or anxious for very understandable and humane reasons is the following: Imagine if I planted a seed in a dark cave without any sunlight or access to water, and then blamed the seed for not growing.

Clients will then usually respond in one of two ways: Either they’ll laugh and then nod their heads sheepishly, or they’ll begin to softly cry. The analogy has never failed because it is painfully obvious that the worst thing any one of us could possibly do is blame that poor little seed for not flourishing in such an arid, desolate, dreary and depressing environment . . . and yet we do that to ourselves all the time. We blame ourselves for our loneliness. We think there’s something wrong with us because we feel depressed. We try to fix our anxiety by willing ourselves to do more, to achieve more, to be seen more.

Connection wouldn’t let this happen.

Connection would tell you you’re loved simply as you are; you don’t have to prove your worth to the safe collective.

Viktor Frankl (who I mentioned earlier) wrote that, “The normal functioning eye does not see itself, it is rather overlooking itself.” In other words, when an eye is healthy, it looks out into the world with ease. When it is unhealthy, however, it is acutely aware of the cataract, for example—or less perilous, the annoying eyelash. This analogy is helpful to consider because it demonstrates that optimal human functioning is intimately related to a focus beyond ourselves; and I think that connection promotes just that.

Jay Shetty, the life coach and content creator said that “Your passion is for you, your purpose is for everyone else.” Purpose is about contribution and giving. It’s about being helpful and providing value for others. I think that “finding your purpose” has become yet another capitalistic attempt to fulfil our own egoic desires of self-gratification and status—that’s the way it appears to be commodified.

Find your purpose in ten minutes!

Use these three steps to find your purpose!

Me, me, me, me, me.

Only those who have truly found their purpose live meaningful lives precisely because they’re mostly concerned with how they can be useful.

Navigating the Healing Path

I truly—down to the core of my being—believe that successful therapy has only been achieved when the client begins to consider the lives of others (not from guilt, but from empathy). Now, let me be clear: By no means do I think that clients who initially engage in therapy do so because they are inherently self-centred. As I’ve stated already, the human organism forces introspection—whether through reflection, or anxiety and depression etc.—if upbringings were difficult and full of neglect or abuse, for example; or if one has experienced trauma or major loss; or if life changes evoke existential contemplation etc. In these cases, as well as many others, the human organism must look inward and upon itself in order to understand itself before cautiously navigating a new life trajectory. Reflection, introspection and a descent into one’s innermost cave is not only necessary, but inevitable. But how long will the healing take? Answer: when one can once again contribute—just like every other living organism on Earth. An apple seed requires nourishment and frequent tending to until it grows to full fruition. And how do we know if/when it is fully grown? When it bears ripe fruit for us to enjoy—in other words, when it is contributing to its ecosystem. In the same way, successful therapy may take two sessions or two-hundred sessions, but eventually our needs will be subsumed by the needs of the collective. As Gandhi noted, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

So, if this writing has resonated in any way, then my guess is that you might be ready to consider a life beyond yourself—not because you don’t matter, but because you matter so much that the world needs your gifts, your insights, your perspectives. You weren’t meant to live like that seed in the dark cave. You were meant to flourish in an ecosystem that values and supports you, one in which you contribute to in your own beautiful way. Rather than asking “What’s my purpose?”, consider the following questions:

“How can I help?”

“Where am I needed?”

And if your life really lacks direction, ponder the words of the late writer and theologian Frederick Buechner: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” I came across that pithy statement in a book about anxiety written by the life coach Dr. Martha Beck, and it hasn’t left me since.

Where does your deepest gladness meet the world’s deep need?