Speaking of Psychology - How to Find Meaning in Life (SOP75)

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

We all want to find meaning in our lives, our reason to get up in the morning, yet doing so may not be easy. What is meaning in life and how do we find it for ourselves? The guest for this episode is Clara Hill, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland and author of Meaning in Life: A Therapist’s Guide. APA is currently seeking proposals for APA 2020 sessions, learn more at http://convention.apa.org/proposals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a biweekly podcast from the American Psychological Association. I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. Before we dive into our conversation, I want to remind you, our listeners, that we love to hear from you. If you have any comments, questions, or ideas for us, please email me at K-Luna at APA.org. That's K-L-U-N-A-A-A-D-org. Now on to the conversation. We all want to find meaning in our lives, our reason to get up in the morning, yet doing so may not be so easy.

What is meaning in life and how do we find it for ourselves? Our guest is Dr. Clara Hill, an APA fellow and professor of psychology at the University of Maryland. Dr. Hill recently published a book, Meaning in Life, a Therapist's Guide, which assists therapists as they help clients find meaning in their lives. Today's conversation will examine the concept of meaning in life and ways to find it. Dr. Hill. Thank you. It's delightful to be here. So there's a lot of talk out there about finding one's purpose or calling, passion, you know, meaning in life. So what are your thoughts about those conversations that are happening out there in the world? Well, I think it's terrific because I think people really need

to focus on finding meaning in life. And the emphasis on it is even more now than I think it used to be, which is interesting. I think in the past, people often just took their meaning in life. And the as their religion or their job and didn't have much opportunity to think about it. I think they still had meaning in life. It's just they didn't have an opportunity to have as many choices about meaning in life. And I think particularly as religion declines and as job security is so flexible, I think people really have to spend a lot more time trying to think about what did they want in life and how are they going to go about getting it.

Is meaning in life an eternal question? Have people always searched for a meeting in life, or is that something that's happening because of our modern world today? Well, I think it is something that people have always searched for, because by the nature of our cognitive development, when we try to figure out how to make sense of the world, I think that's why religions develop. People had to figure out what they're here for and what the purpose is. So I think it's something we've always struggled with. I think sometimes, especially in the distant past, it was up to other people to decide for us what our meaning was. And I think, again, as more technology, as more times have changed, I think we have more the ability to decide for ourselves what we want our meaning to be.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's, I mean, it's something you've probably seen in, you know, ancient, probably in the Bible or ancient texts of these questions about like, what is our purpose here? what are we doing here in this world? And I think the answers were more clear-cut, your purpose is to fulfill God's will. But, you know, and that was really good, and there's plenty of evidence that people who are religious and have a spiritual sense are happier and have more meaning.

But that doesn't work for everybody. Now, another point in interest, we talked about people having purpose, but you can also think about other animals, like dogs and horses particularly. there's a lot written about feeling a need to have a purpose to feel like they're doing something important. Dogs get trained to help people. Right.

So it's not just people, but it is a level of cognitive development. And I think people certainly have had to talk about it more. So that makes a difference. Yeah, it's fascinating about animals. I hadn't thought about that. But if you think about, you know, what makes a dog happy is kind of like having a job to do or, you know, sniffing. I mean, which is probably in their minds. checking out the environment or keeping the family safe or, you know, guide dog, that sort of thing.

And some dogs, if they're not, like border collies, if they're not, they don't have a job, they kind of go a little nutty. Yeah, or some, you know, huskies, actually, I think, the working type of dogs. Exactly. A smaller, you know, maybe like a very small dog might not as much, like a toy poodle or something. But still, I think there's that sense of innate sense in many animals to do. Right. And I think it really does go with our cognitive development, because you can see it in children.

little children still want to have something to do, but, you know, as you start thinking about it more, it's the ability to think, and especially as you get into being an adolescent, you know, the feelings about meaning in life, kids want to know what they're going to do with their lives. So it becomes a very much of a crisis period to think about what am I going to do. And then in middle age, it becomes a period of, well, am I doing what I want to be doing? And then as you get older, it's have I done what I wanted to do? What's next? And then I think death anxiety clearly figures into that because if when we die, we want to feel like we've accomplished something. And, you know, death is, it's going to happen to all of us.

Yes, let's touch on that a little bit. How does meaning in life change across the lifespan? Like you mentioned children and then teens and adolescents and then, you know, budding adults and then middle age. It seems like there's meaning in life could change around the lifespan. Absolutely. Well, I think another thing is important is to think about it's not like something you attain. It's something you're always working on. So you can have one big thing like you can have your career set.

But also I think in every moment and every day we're thinking about what gives us meaning right now. So there's different kind of small M meaning and big M meaning. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I was, uh, the other day, I was just sort of, you know, thinking in my head about the things I had to do when I got home, like making dinner or something like that. And it kind of, you know, begrudgingly. I was thinking about it. But then I tried to connect it with values I have, like having dinner on the table and a healthy meal. And that seemed to help. And that seemed to help. I mean, obviously, it's a very small thing. And it's not what is my purpose here, you know, just just like, you get home from work. You're thinking like I had do all these things before you can kind of have your you time. And, and but that seemed to help. I mean, obviously, it's a very small thing. It's not what is my purpose here, but. Well, no. Well, it. It's. It. It. It. isn't a small thing. I think all these things are important. Even the small things add up a lot. And it's making decisions at each moment about what do I want to be doing. And if you're doing things begrudgingly, your life is worse for it. If you're doing it because you want to take care of yourself, you want to take care of your partner, then you start having a different attitude

and your values fit in there. And it's very important that it fits with values. Yeah. Right. Yes, that did seem to help. And, you know, even something. like cleaning or something like that. Well, we make choices all the time. And so cleaning at some level could be begrudging a task. But if you can think of it as here's something I want to do. And if I don't want to do it, are there other ways around it? Whose standards am I living up to?

Right. Yeah, that's important to examine, I think even on the small level. Exactly. And I wanted to, if you could explain the difference between meaning in life and meaning of life. Because even as I was writing this, you know, writing, these questions, I was thinking, I kept having to catch myself not saying meaning of life. So can you explain what that is? Absolutely.

So meaning of life is what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? How did humans come to exist? Is there a ordained purpose for us? Is there a larger meaning of life? Or is it just evolution that brought us to the place we are? So those are kind of the, it's kind of the genesis. of everybody. It's not just me personally, whereas meaning in life is how I construct my meaning.

Even if I believe that the meaning of life is a religious meaning, I still have to make it my meaning. So it's more something I take on, I construct, and I develop. So it's not even searching for it, because searching for it makes it sound like it's something outside that you go out and find someplace. Whereas I'm saying it's more something we have to construct, we have to make up, we have to decide, we have to choose. And it's within our power, within limitations, because we all have limitations, but it's within our power to choose what our meaning is going to be. And can you talk about how people can find meaning in their lives? I mean, these are very large questions. Very large questions. Well, I think it's the simple thing, in some levels it is

the simple thing of every little thing you do, making a choice. What do I choose to do? What am I getting from that? What meaning do I take from that? And being very reflective and self-aware. I think that's the key to finding the purpose and then finding, am I doing what I want to be doing? And really stopping and reflecting. And I think for most of us, we don't do that reflection on a regular basis. We life kind of takes over and we just kind of go through and do what we have to do for the day. And then when something comes up, some big transition, a death of a parent or a death of a pet or get fired from a job, all of a sudden, then it's like, ooh, what is, you know, then we have the big existential conversations about what is my meaning. So I think, again, it's that every little thing we do as well as the bigger questions about meaning. You know, so you're talking about answering these big existential questions.

Do those tend to come around when you have a life change? Yeah. Okay. Can you talk about that a little more? Yeah, I think it's either at points of regular life developmental kinds of tasks, like emerging adulthood, finding a job, finding a partner, middle age, old age, or it's because of transitions that happen like you get stuck in a tsunami or you have a death or you get traumatized by a rape or something like that.

And then all of a sudden, everything you've thought of in the world as the just world, the things are the way they are, gets disrupted. And you have to stop and think. I can remember when my father died, I remember sitting in a coffee shop and just like, it felt like the world had stopped. It's like, how could these people keep going? It's like nothing makes sense anymore. And I think especially when something doesn't make sense, that disrupts us.

And it makes us stop and think. And lots of times we just cover over that and just we can't handle it. So we just run away. But so, I mean, there's that feeling of this is too much to handle. And I think the thing is that those existential questions are very difficult. But that's the golden time. That's really the opportunity to stop and think. evaluate, is this the way I want to be spending my life? Because we only have a certain amount of

time here. So it's really a gift, those moments, as hard as it can seem at the time, whenever likely you're dealing with a challenging situation. Well, it's an opportunity. An opportunity. Yeah, right. I don't know if I'd ever, some of those things, I don't think I'd ever say as gifts. Yeah. Maybe looking back, you could say that was an opportunity and we'd be like a, you know, one of those pivotal points in life. Pivotal points. On the other hand, sometimes events are so hard that they do destroy us. Yeah. But some,

some events are good enough that are opportunities to help us rethink what we want. Kind of like a pivot point. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah, that's really, that's really fascinating. I mean,

that how, that these big events could could really drastically change, you know, call into question your meaning. Right. So if you have a traumatic situation happen, that does call into question

the meaning in life that you had believed in before that, what do you do? You have to think really long and hard about, you know, what does this mean? I think most people go into those kind of situations and they think, for example, that there's a just world. And when they learn that the world isn't just, that the world is unfair, that's traumatic. That's devastating in many ways. And having to come back to that and incorporate that into your way of thinking.

and not give up, but to say, well, within the limbs of what I can do, what can I do? You know, how can I deal with this? How can I prosper within my set of limitations? Yeah. So, yeah, if you do run across a situation where you do feel like the world isn't fair, are you sort of saying that the thing to keep going and to keep going and to keep? Well, I don't like... Asking the hard questions.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of just keep going. You know, I think that denigrates the difficulties. I think the thing is to really stop, pause, and reflect. You know, if there's any theme and everything I'm going to say, it's the self-awareness, reflection, thinking about oneself. The problem is, for many people, that's really hard. You know, and that's why therapy is so valuable,

because it's really nice to have the supportive person who will listen to you and help you explore non-judgmentally. Most of us didn't have that as children. And so, you know, having that person there who will listen to us is really important because these are things we don't want to look at. We've often been trained not to look at them. And so it really helps to have someone nearby who you can talk to about it. Yeah, absolutely. It's something like a mirror, you know. obviously highly intelligent, highly intelligent, trained to mirror, but it, a reflection of

of you and your attitude. Exactly. So because what you're trying to do is figure out what you want. Because, again, so much of the time as children, we do what we're told to do. And we don't, and so that moving from being told to figuring out on our own, who we are and what we want, because nobody can tell you that. It's something you have to struggle with to do on your own. And the more you put it off, the harder it gets, but the more important it is.

So if you think if you do put it off, does that lead to maybe something like a crisis later in life? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Or profound regrets at death. Right. And that sounds very scary. I mean, if I just think about that right now, if you're, it is too late.

I mean, there's a lot of times we say, you know, these motivational things like, you know, it's never too late to change, which I do believe in. but at the same time there will be a moment. There is a moment when it is too late. And sometimes in our final years, we not only die, but we get Alzheimer's or whatever, and it is too late at that point. Right, or you're just ill or something, yeah.

But you do what you can at the time. And some of us can't do anything more, and that's what we can do. In your book, you write about, there's about five components of meaning in life. and they are a felt sense of meaning, mattering or significance, purpose, goals, and engagement in life, coherence,

and reflectivity about meaning. So can you walk us through each component and what that means? Absolutely. So the felt sense is just, most of us, if you ask somebody, do you have meaning in life, they will answer immediately,

yes or no, or on a 10-point scale, 6, 7, whatever. And it's just a sense that you have. It's often hard to even say what it is. Sometimes, then there's research to show that when you feel good, you rate yourself as having more meaning in life. I don't think it's the same, but I think you actually see that you have more meaning when you feel good. So it's just this felt sense. Mattering and significance is probably in my mind the most important.

Mattering is mattering to someone else or other people mattering to you, the feeling of my family, my husband, my children, my grandchildren. my students, they matter to me. And I feel like I matter to them. It makes a difference that I'm in the world, that they're in the world. So that's the mattering that if, in fact, there are some, Frank and Frank in their book, Persuasion and Healing talked about how in some African cultures, while when people were thrown away from the tribe, they were told to go away, they were, you know, I can't think of the word, dispelled from the tribe.

They died. Perfectly healthy people would go out in the forest and die because they no longer mattered. And there's some research on prisoners. The prisoners feel like they don't matter. They feel like they're discards from society. And that feeling of mattering is so crucial to us that, you know, it's kind of like I do have a place in this world. So that's the mattering. And the significance that goes with it is that I've done something significant.

I have a legacy. think of all the presidents want to leave a legacy. I think we all want to leave a little bit of a legacy. We want to see an obituary that people have remembered us that we were there. We have a tombstone. We can show I was here. I existed. I made a difference, at least for a moment.

So that's mattering and significance. Then the purpose goals engagement is feeling like you have something to accomplish in life, something that you're doing, you have a purpose of goals, or you have had a purpose of goals, or that you're just totally engaged in something. So, for example, I'm writing a revision of my Helping Skills book. I'm totally absorbed in it. That's engagement. I feel like I have, I'm doing something that matters to me. So that's having a purpose. Lots of times that's taken up with a job, but it can be a vocation, it can be a hobby, it can be volunteering. It can just be doing something for a neighbor's, doing some random act of kindness.

Yes, maybe it doesn't have to be so, so intense as like a job. Because I think a lot of pressure is out there when I talk about finding your passion or calling. It was a lot of great motivational speakers and people talk about what they've learned, how they've been successful. But I think sometimes that can be somewhat overwhelming. People can look at you as an idol, but also, okay, if you're not in the same, If you're feeling the same way about your kind of your work or something, that might be scary. Yeah.

And I think for all of us, it's like if I haven't done a cure for cancer, you know, writing a book of meaning in life, that's not the same as curing cancer. If I'm not Carl Rogers or Sigmund Freud, you know, am I anything? It's like it's all or nothing. We have to be famous. Right. Yeah, there's definitely that pressure. He said to be well known or something.

It was like, well, you can make a difference. And how many people are well known? You know, does that mean only a few people can have meaning? And it's not. You know, you can have meaning by doing a good pot of soup kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or just like you said, anything, helping a neighbor out or being there for a friend doesn't have to be so serious as you're, you know, you're a president of the United States or you're a, you know, chart topping singer. Right. That's a lot of pressure. That's a lot of pressure to live up to. It's way too much pressure. And that's, it's external pressure. And that's a big thing is that's something from.

the outside because that's something you can't control. We can control, again, within our limits, because we all have limits. We can make choices within those limits. And that, you know, so I might not be Sigmund Freud, but I can be Clara Hill. And maybe that's going to have to be good enough. So the next one is coherence. And actually, this one was the hardest one for me to kind of grab hold of it first. But it's kind of making sense out of the world. It's, again, where where do I fit in the world? Does the world make sense? What, how does, it's kind of like what we think of in therapy as insight,

kind of getting insight into me, myself, my place in the world, how I fit. And we all want some sense of coherence. So people like trees that are in orderly rows more than random because that makes them feel like there's coherence. And even if there's not coherence in the world, even if it is, and I do believe this that from an evolutionary standpoint, it's just in some ways by chance

that we got where we are, it still feels good to feel like there is not just totally random. So feeling that need for coherence. Sense of order. Yeah. And then the final one is reflectivity. And that's thinking about meaning.

And in some ways it feels different from the other ones because the other ones are sources of meaning. But in fact, if we didn't think about meaning, we wouldn't have meaning. So the whole self-reflection and thinking about and pondering and who am I, what do I want, that helps us construct the sense of meaning and take it from those other aspects. So those are the five. So is this something you can do on your own or do you think it's, do you need a therapist? I mean, what do you advise? Well, I think we all do it on our own all the time. And I think that,

think this is in general what much of like dreams is another area I'm interested and we mostly look at our dreams and we think about them ourselves I think it's when we get stuck that it helps to have a therapist I mean it's I think everybody should go to therapy but obviously everybody can't afford it it's not possible but I think it really is mainly when you're stuck when you when you haven't had good parenting and need kind of someone to be there and help you reimagine your life. So I think it's incredibly useful to have therapy, but you have to be ready for it.

You have to find somebody that fits with you. But especially when you're stuck. So at these big crisis points, I think it can really be helpful to have somebody there who will listen to you. Yeah, absolutely. In dealing with whatever is going on and then also getting past that

as you address what it means for your life. Right. You did talk about how when you're, you're feeling happier, you're feeling better, you tend to ascribe that you have more meaning in life or believe that you have more meaning in life. So how does happiness fit into all this? Is being happy, having meaning in life? So are you happy if you have meaning in life? And if you have meaning in life, are you happy? Yeah, that's a great question. And again, I think the research is difficult on this. But, and some people again have found that if you feel good, you'll say

you have meaning. So Ballmeister did a lovely study looking at the fact that happiness and meaning are highly correlated. So they are, for the most part, yes, when you're happy, you feel like you have meaning because I think you see things in your life that you as having meaning. And when you have meaning, I think it makes you happy. But he also found that there's some differences between them. So happiness is more related to pleasure, in the moment, feeling good, like having a good meal, having some good chocolate, whereas meaning is more related to making sense out of things, feeling like you matter, feeling like you contribute. So there are, so he gave a great example of a parenting paradox where parents at the time don't feel very happy.

Yeah. But it does feel like it's meaningful to raise a child. Or people who are mission. or revolutionaries, they probably aren't very happy because they probably live in miserable conditions for the most part, but they feel like they're doing something that's very, very important. So they're willing to give up immediate pleasure or happiness. They'll sleep in rotten conditions, whatever, so they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish. So related, but you can see some places where they're very distinct.

Yeah, this is something you have to kind of suss out for yourself. Like are you, right? Or you actually, you know, where it is happiness and meaning in life intersect and where do they diverge? You know, and I think the thing is a lot of people search for pleasure too much. And I think the mad search for pleasure, it feels, it ends up feeling empty. Absolutely, yeah. Whereas the search for meaning, I think, makes you feel like, you know, you're at a point of what can I contribute. I mean, in some ways, some people who have the most difficulty with meaning are people who are too wealthy.

You know, you can imagine because they've never had to figure it out. They've had everything handed to them. And so they can feel good, but, you know, are they contributing anything? And again, it's a value. It's certainly my value that it's important to have meaning. Yeah, it's sort of like the Buddhist story about leaving, being born into a kingdom and leaving to find out the true meaning of suffering of life. Exactly.

And that was more meaning, I guess, probably meaning in life and meaning of life. It might have been a little bit of both, I think, of kind of going off of that. And you bring up a great word, the whole word of suffering. Victor Frankel talked about suffering, how, you know, it's important for us all to be aware of our suffering and think about it and process it. And he said, you don't need to go search for suffering because it's always there. No matter where you are in your life, some of us have far more than others. but we need to make sense of suffering and not try to get rid of it. Yeah, I think that can be challenging.

If you think about, you know, you might feel like, okay, do I'm, you know, I think I've struggled with this with this question too. You sort of feel like other people have it so much worse, you know, but, you know, I shouldn't be, you know, thinking so much about challenges in my life. But I guess I've tried to come to the realization and I try to tell myself, that, you know, I can't be in another person's situation. I can certainly have empathy and sympathy and, you know, see what I can do to help. But I also have, if I don't address the challenges in my own life,

right. I'm probably not doing much for myself. Right. Yeah, I think we can't, in some ways, all we can answer to is what, who we are and what we can contribute. Now, I think another point, though, is that we ought to, I think a very valuable part of meaning is for social. justice to try to help other people who aren't as privileged as we are. And there are plenty of

people who aren't privileged. But I don't think we can say, well, I shouldn't feel bad because I have more than they do. It's more being aware of my privileges and finding meaning in trying to help them, trying to change the world. And I think that's what psychology is all about us. Absolutely. Trying to change the world to be a better place. Exactly. Exactly. And one thing you mentioned was talking about if you're trying to search for a meaning in life was to write your own obituary or to ponder meaning in your life can you talk a little bit about that writing that doing that exercise yeah it's a profound exercise i use it in class a lot and to to really realize you know that feeling like i'm on my deathbed and what do i want people to have remembered me for

there's i think a field called teleology and it's the idea is when we project into the future how we will feel, then we are more engaged in trying to get there. So the idea of what do I want people to think about me, to hear about me, to reflect on me, then I'm more likely to change and go and do it. It's like in a way instigating the crisis that we talked about, you know, so that you have to think about it for a moment. But it's really hard because I think for most of us,

thinking of an obituary, thinking of death is something we don't want to do. Yeah, absolutely. But it might be helpful to think of like, how would you want to be remembered? Yeah. What things are important to you. And I think somebody once said the whole notion that when they died, they didn't want to have spent any more time in the office. And for me, I was thinking, no, that's not, you know, I feel like the time I spend in the

office is I love what I do. So I want to be there. So to be doing what you want to be doing and not later say, oh, I have these regrets. Yeah, that just sounds really isn't. I just, you know, imagine how that would feel this moment in my life. Like, wow, that would be very, you see why elderly people might have some despair in some ways. I mean, obviously it could be from a variety of reasons, but it could be from regrets. But I think also with older people, I think it's very possible really good therapy is

helping them recast their lives and go back and look at it. and instead of having regrets for what they didn't do to try to get some perspective on the things they did do that were meaningful. Yeah, they might go into what we were just talking about is how if you're, you know, people, some people might feel like if they're not, you know, Madonna or, or, you know, a president of the United States or a senator. That's all or nothing. Yeah, a revolutionary in the history books that it just, that they didn't do anything. but how many people contributed who are behind those people? It's, you know, untold stories. So I think like you said, recasting your life, that's important too.

Yeah, and just trying to figure out what can I do, what are my talents, you know, and some people who are multi-talented, that's difficult, but some people who don't have many talents or who are restricted by poverty. I mean, that's really difficult, but still within that to figure out what can I do to make myself and the world a better place. Yeah, and everyone has talents. Everyone has something to contribute. Well, some of them are,

lots of us are more limited than others, you know? With everything, do you still believe everyone can contribute something, right? Something. Yeah, something to the world, yeah, to make us leave a better place. Yeah, but it's not necessarily the thing that is socially sanctioned as the best thing.

It's more, you know, what fits for me? Like, one of my clients wants to raise dahlias. Oh, the flower, yeah. Yeah. You know, and for her, that's just very meaningful to figure out how to do that. Yeah. You know, and so it's not up to each of us to judge what somebody else does, but to figure out for ourselves what gives us meaning.

Yes, absolutely. How can we encourage other people in our lives that we care about, our parents, siblings, friends, spouses to find a meaning in their life? A question is a really interesting one. I would actually say we shouldn't. Okay. How so? Well, what I mean by that is lots of times we try to change other people.

I see. And, you know, it's like they're not good enough, so lots of times people get with a partner, that they find a partner, and then they try to change them immediately. Yeah, it's never a good idea. Never a good idea. So I think in some ways what's absolutely the best is you changing.

You know, rather than encouraging other people to change. change, live a life that you want to be leading. And if people ask you, let them know what you're doing. But don't tell them what to do. Don't try to make them do what you want to do. So I think being a model would be more than taking responsibility for your own life. Yeah, that seems to be the one of the most challenging things out there is just taking responsibility for your own life and not trying to change. others or judge others.

Like, I think it's something I could probably say most of us struggle with. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, especially in relationships. You know, we want other people to be happy. We don't want them to be sad. We don't want them to suffer. Yeah, right.

You know, and most people who go into psychology, my students, I see it all the time. They want to help others, you know? And part of that helping is it's helping for them, but it's also making them feel better. But, you know, you can be there and you can be a resource. but that changed other people. Yeah, that's a very fine, fine line, I think, because you want to serve as, I think the idea you just talked about

is serving as a role model is really powerful and like living, living it yourself, I think is really important because people do pick up on that in your lives. I mean, not everyone, but I think when you see someone who is living the way that you admire or, you know, some qualities you're like, you can take it, see what you like for yourself

and take it on for yourself. And not try to be them. Of course, yeah. You know, but that's also the difficulty is, you know, trying to be yourself and figure out who you are. And I don't, we don't have good things in our culture for doing that. Yeah, that's one other question I had for you. I mean, it just seems like our world today is really set up for short term, seeking short term pleasure. And, I mean, although we're, although there are these opportunities to reflect on your passion and purpose,

there's so many temptations in the short term for, you know, buying things or doing things or consuming media, you know, that just is very materialistic. Yeah, it's very surface. It's not, it doesn't go in depth into these big questions. So is, you know, we do have listeners from other countries, but is American society, which is the one I can speak about because I'm living in America, is it set up for these, these, these answering these big questions and really living a life? that is about meaning.

Yeah. Well, I don't think so. You know, and I think it's too hard. I think it's easier to figure out, well, what do I want to buy next? What am I going to dress? How am I going to look? What does the neighbor think? But I think these questions about meaning are just, we just want to push them away.

Yeah. So, yeah, I don't think we are set up to do that. Even in therapy, people go to therapy for getting rid of symptoms. Not many people go to therapy to work on existential issues. That ought to be what therapy is mostly about. is these are the big issues that we need to be struggling with. And there ought to be more effort put toward that. Yeah, I've just been kind of pondering that a little bit more.

It just seems like there's so much working against you. Yep. You know, and at a podcast I did recently, it was talking about finances and anxiety on the stock market. And I did talk to a psychologist about that. And similar questions came up about just like about, you know, thinking forward and, you know, having a nest egg and delaying gratification. and how important that was.

That seems like it even kind of parallels with meaning in life too. In some ways, I mean, obviously, it's different in a lot of other ways. But, you know, we're just, the culture around us makes life makes it challenging. Right. Well, you know, how much money do we need?

Yeah. I mean, it's nice to have money. Of course. You need. Totally think. Yeah. But that does not give you happiness. It does not give you meaning.

And to help people figure that out early on so that children, you know, come to believe that it's, It's what you, who you are, you know, that we need to be good people. We need to be kind people. Yeah, when there's a lot of pressure the other way. So it's just got to go, go against the grain and kind of fight the tide, I think, a little bit. Exactly.

You know, and along those lines, too, we are seeing, you know, the records of, or the rates of suicide were frighteningly high in the CDC report that was released over the summer. And it was very alarming. How can finding meaning in life help people who might feel those feelings of worthlessness or helplessness or people struggling with severe depression? I mean, we clearly have a crisis going on. We have a problem happening. Well, actually, it is a crisis of meaning. I mean, lots of times people commit suicide because they have no meaning. So it is actually the epitome of that crisis.

One of the groups they talk about mostly is white men, feeling like they used to be the ones in charge of society, and now they're feeling irrelevant. Lots of people are losing their jobs. Robots are going to come in and take away even more jobs. And so what are people going to do? How are people going to find any meaning in their lives? So, yeah, I think suicide is a big one. And I think it's often a big cry for help trying to figure out what our people. places and what we can do. And I think the problem is a lot of times with suicide is people,

it's like that tunnel vision, they don't see that there's any other possibilities. They're just so beaten down and they give up. And so I think we need to do a lot to help people who are in that place. I mean, I can certainly remember in high school having feelings like that. And I couldn't, I couldn't at the time imagine that there could be a possible different future. You're feeling, feeling helpless? Yeah, just feeling like, this, you know, this is a bad place. I don't want to be here kind of thing, yeah. It's sort of easy to have that happen.

You see a lot of the bad things happening around, around. And he said the changing world, too. Changing so fast. Yeah. Where's our place in it? Yeah. I saw an interview you did for the University of District of Columbia, where you talked a little about finding purpose and work

and how automation robots may come into play. Right. And that was interesting to hear that because I think there is a sense of, okay, we want to be doing more meaningful work so we can have a, you know, a automatic cash register or someone at a fast food, you know, someone at the drive-through so you don't have an actual human there. But it does seem like, I don't know if there's, of course, I'm just saying this. I don't know if there's any connection. But with the rise in people out of work and how those relate to feelings of helplessness, Does you have any thoughts about how the changing technology and how that's impacting meaning in life?

Is it creating more of a challenge for people to find meaning life? Because if you find meaning in life through work, no matter what it is, what does that do to your spirit? Yeah. I think it's going to have huge problems in the future if so many people don't have jobs and robots are replacing us. And what do we do? What do we do?

Go and get our nails painted and, you know, is that all that we have? to look forward to and having enough money, you know, where's, where's, how are people going to live? Unless our culture changes dramatically to support everybody. I mean, wouldn't that be wonderful if we actually supported everybody and gave everybody health care and then said to everybody, you know, how can you find meaning? Let's, you know, you don't have to work. You know, what do you want to do with your life? That would be such a different kind of world. Yeah, just one where maybe you explore jobs that are, you know, you know, or you can, you know, use your, your talents in different ways and that sort of thing.

Right. Especially if there's a safety net to catch people. But then the whole society has to change. We have to totally revalue what is, you know, to take care of people. I mean, if people don't have dental care and medical care, they can't think about, you know, meaning in life. They just have to survive. Yeah.

And they're talking about the different modes of, you know, how can you get to the self-actual if you're worried about the basic needs. Exactly. And, you know, is, you know, is we think about people around the world who are in that situation, even people our own country. I mean, you know, APA is a deep poverty initiative this year. Right. It's part of our new president.

And we're talking about this deep entrenched poverty that people are dealing with. And how that relates to, to well-being. Yeah. It doesn't feel good. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. You're in survival mode. You're in survival mode and you feel like you're outcasts from society.

Yeah, that's a very big problem. I think the figure I saw recently was like 18.5 million people live in deep poverty. And that's having an income that is half of the federal poverty line. So about an income of about $12,000 for family of four. So it's like how does meaning impact, how does meaning in life impact people from all different socioeconomic statuses? So it's interesting to talk about people feeling wealthy who are, wealthy or having these crises. Right. And people who are in poverty. It's like it's, it's on both ends of the special. It's fascinating. Lots of times the people in poverty, there's such a cycle.

You know, they have too many kids. They have health problems. They have all this stuff and they have to work three or four jobs. And they just are struggling to hang on. And it's very, very difficult. Absolutely. I mean, there's obviously these questions will linger on probably for the all of humanity. Exactly. Can you touch on, aside from your book, other research, you're doing on meaning in life? I know you've done extensive work on the topic. Well, a couple of things we're doing it. We have a clinic at the University of Maryland, the Maryland psychotherapy, clinic and research lab, and we're everybody, all the clients who come in are filling out measures of meaning and life. And we're actually then going back over some of the sessions in coding when

meaning and life gets discussed overtly. And so we can go back and look at when is it, what their topics are that people talk about. So that's some of the stuff coming up in the future, looking at meaning in life. That will be your research topic moving forward. Well, I have a lot of research topics. It's not just meaning in life. As I mentioned, helping skills is one of my big areas. And so one of the passions I have is trying to teach therapists to be good therapist. So I'm doing a lot of work in that right now as well as in psychotherapy and trying to figure out what makes psychotherapy work. So I have kind of several broad areas of interest. Is that people in, are they in the PhD program at Maryland or are they already practicing and they're just doing like refining skills?

No, people who are just beginning like undergraduates take a course in helping skills. Graduate students take a course in helping skills. So it's really trying to figure out how to help them hone skills they have to be better communicators, better therapist. Yeah. And just one last question for you. You focus on meaning in life. So have you, do you feel like you found meaning in your life?

Well, it's such a good way that you phrased that question. because I don't think anybody ever finds meaning. I think it's a process of constructing meaning on a daily basis, like we talked about before. So I don't think I would say I've found meaning. I think some moments I feel a couple days ago I felt like, wow, I feel like I'm actually in a groove and writing this book on helping skills just feels great.

And other times this huge despair of who cares, what difference does it all make? So I think it's a very moment. thing and realizing, you know, what have I contributed? Am I? So, but I also would say I'm incredibly privileged that I have a wonderful family. I have a wonderful job. I do things that I like to do. I only do what I want to do at this point. So I feel privileged and very fortunate to get to pursue what I want to pursue in terms of my meaning. I mean, I can change topics at any time. I can do dreams. I can do meaning.

I can do psychotherapy. And it's not many people have that kind of freedom and to get to be around smart students to get to do research. I mean, it's just a fabulous career in psychology. And I like how you said it too about as a journey, not a destination. I mean,

it sounds like, oh, he's such a cliche. Sometimes there's so many things. It's about the journey not of the destination. But they said it's true. There are some days that are great and you're feeling on top of the world. Some days you're just feeling like blah,

you know, like what's the point? What's the point? What difference does make? Whoever you know, I look at an article. I wrote nobody's ever read it even. You know, it's like, why did I bother? Yeah.

But like I really think it's helpful. You talked about just looking at the day to day and over a period of time. Right. And not just like looking at the, you know, the day to day things. But I think like self-full, I also like you said, just to look at how different things connect to your values and what's important to your life. And if it's not important, maybe that's a place for reevaluating and seeing. you know, where you can do something that makes you feel like it's connecting with what's important

to you. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Then we have to make changes. Yeah. And that's hard. And that's the part, I think, you know, I think. But it's important. I imagine a lot of people have a deep sense within them if they really examine it, that there probably is a desire to feel like they have a meaning in life. They have a purpose. Yeah. I think, I think, I think it is inherent in our, you know, the way we're wired to want to have meaning. Even if there is no meaning, we need to make it so that we can feel like we are doing something in life. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's really true. Thank you so much for this fascinating conversation, Dr. Curl. I really enjoyed having you on the podcast. It's great fun. Thank you. If you've been a long-time listener or if you're

new to our podcast, please consider giving us a rating in iTunes or if you have time, write a review. We'd really appreciate it. Also, like I mentioned, the beginning, of the show, we'd love to hear from you directly. So if you have any questions, comments, or ideas to share, please email me at K-Luna at APA.org. That's K-L-U-N-A-A-A-A-D-Rg. Speaking of Psychology is part of the APA podcast network, which includes the podcast's APA Journal's dialogue

about new psychological research and progress notes about the practice of psychology. You can find our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to our website, speakingof-psychology.org, to listen to more episodes. I'm Caitlin Luna with the American Psychological Association.