What is our purpose?
What goals should we pursue to live a full life?
You are reading: Books about the purpose of life
there is no topic more important than the meaning of our lives. many thinkers, past and present, have challenged it (baggini, 2005; & eagleton, 2007).
Broadly speaking, meaning theorists fall into two camps. some believe that life has no intrinsic meaning and that we must construct our meanings ourselves. the meaning of life, they argue, is a subjective matter.
Others maintain that our existence has an absolute meaning. but they tend to disagree on what that meaning might be. the most cited contenders are happiness and love. other common suggestions include self-actualization, relationships, pleasure, service, and creativity.
The following list includes thinkers from both sides of the argument. I hope you find it enlightening.
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1. man’s search for meaning – viktor frankl
At the top of my list (and many others of its kind) is man’s search for meaning: the classic tribute to the hope of the holocaust (frankl, 1946, 2004). It was written by the Austrian psychiatrist, holocaust survivor and founder of logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, who lived between 1905 and 1997.
frankl argues that our main task in life is to endow it with meaning, whatever form it takes. we must find meaning even in our suffering, he writes her, because otherwise we are lost.
In the autobiographical section of his deeply moving book, Frankl recounts that those who managed to stay in touch with what made their lives meaningful in the Nazi death camps were more likely to survive. their personal meanings took many different forms. it could be a strong desire to return to a loved one, complete a creative or intellectual project, or simply a strong desire to help others.
If there is a powerful “why” that drives us, Frankl declares, paraphrasing Nietzsche, we can tolerate almost any “how”.
frankl believes that we can discover the meaning of life in three main areas: “(1) by doing an act or creating a work; (2) meeting someone or experiencing something; and (3) by the attitude we take toward inevitable suffering” (frankl 2004, p. 115).
The meaning of our lives can be creativity in the broad sense of the word. this includes creative work but also just doing something, learning something or being productive. meaning can also be found in the experience of love and appreciation of beauty, excellence, culture and nature.
Crucially, Frankl (2004, p. 115) argues that meaning has to be located outside of ourselves. it has to be discovered in the world rather than in our own psyche. “Human being,” he writes, “always points and addresses something or someone, other than oneself, be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to find.”
frankl’s existentialist approach, then, invites us to put aside our obsession with ourselves and with values such as self-realization, self-improvement and happiness. instead, it urges us to focus on meanings that lie outside the bounds of our own psyche.
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To learn more about existentialism, listen to our meaning & existential positive psychology podcast.
2. of human freedom – epictetus
Like the other Stoa philosophers, the ancient Greek slave Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD) firmly believed that we can control our feelings by controlling our thoughts.
all suffering, he maintains, is in our mind. it is not caused by external events but by our reactions to those events, by our misjudgments and unrealistic expectations.
Because most external events are beyond our control, Epictetus believed that there was no point in worrying about them. but our evaluations of these events, by contrast, are entirely within our control. it follows that we should not attribute importance to any external phenomenon or circumstance. instead, all of our mental energies must be directed inward, with a view to controlling our minds.
epictetus believed that we should rationally assess our cognitions at all times and simply reason our way out of disturbing emotional states. he suggested installing a rational fact-checker in our heads, whose task is to keep our mental state balanced and calm. If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because Stoic thinking is the ancient precursor to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Epictetus’ essay on human freedom is a beautiful and concise introduction to Stoic wisdom. he writes about “what is in our power and what is not”, “how a person can preserve his own character in any situation”, “in contentment” and “how we must deal with circumstances”. he reminds us that “every circumstance represents an opportunity.”
The more we value things that are out of our control, the less control we have. freedom, therefore, “is not achieved by satisfying desire but by eliminating it” (epictetus, 2010, p. 81). life is suffering; Bad things will happen, says Epictetus.
When they do, we can use our bad luck to test our resolve and strengthen our resilience. “So when problems arise, think of yourself as a fighter whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young man. for what purpose? to become Olympic class material” (epictetus, 2010, p. 14).
The ultimate goal of the Stoics is control. they want to be the masters in their own house in order to become completely invincible to the many blows that fortune has in store for us. Essentially, they pursue a radical kind of inner freedom that grants full autonomy from external events. they believe that perfecting a Stoic mindset is our noblest purpose in life. the prize is inner peace.
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3. The Art of Happiness: A Manual for Living – Dalai Lama and Howard C. cutler
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Tibetan Dalai Lama, has co-written a best-selling self-help book titled The Art of Happiness: A Manual for Living with psychiatrist Howard C. cutler (2009).
In this book, he presents Buddhist thought as a comprehensive framework for ethical self-improvement.
Through effort and practice, and by embracing basic Buddhist assumptions about the world, the Dalai Lama believes we can cultivate happiness, well-being, and compassion.
cutler supplements the ancient wisdom of the dalai lama with anecdotes from his psychiatric practice, as well as neuroscientific arguments about brain plasticity. this combination of modern science and ancient thinking is powerful.
Buddhism, Cutler and the Dalai Lama argue, offers an effective psychological, philosophical, and spiritual framework for transforming the self, especially through the practice of compassion. in fact, the Dalai Lama declares that kindness is the very essence of his religion.
However, Buddhist happiness also involves a critical cognitive dimension. to achieve true happiness, we have to accept the idea that our notion of a permanent, separate self is an illusion and that this very notion is the cause of much of our suffering.
See Also: The 3 Best Music Theory Books For Guitarists – GuitarMeet
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4. the happiness trap – russ harris
australian psychologist russ harris (2008) challenges the idea that the meaning of life is to pursue happiness. he believes that current western conceptions of happiness are completely counterproductive.
Her international bestseller, The Happiness Trap, is based on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Unlike the Stoics and CBT, the act does not rationally encourage us to challenge our negative thoughts and feelings. instead, it asks us to simply acknowledge and accept them, and then let them go.
Along with present-moment awareness, values-based living, and taking committed action, taking action suggests acceptance as the healthy alternative to self-defeating attempts to control our unproductive thoughts.
our default mode is not happy, harris argues. we should just accept this fact instead of wasting all our energy fighting it.
Evolution has shaped our brains in such a way that we are now programmed to suffer psychologically. For millennia, our minds have been trained to predict, detect, and avoid danger. the better we were at that task, the more likely we were to survive.
As a result, our minds are now constantly on alert, evaluating and judging everything we encounter. But what used to be a crucial survival skill in the age of the saber-toothed tiger has become a curse in the age of social media.
Now, we just can’t stop comparing, evaluating, and criticizing ourselves, focusing on what we lack, becoming more and more dissatisfied with what we have, and imagining “all sorts of terrifying scenarios, most of which will never happen.” ” (Harris, 2008), p. 5). making matters even worse is that our naturally nervous and slightly anxious state of mind has been pathologized in our society to feel good.
Not only are we naturally unhappy, but we’re also constantly made to feel guilty about it, which makes things worse. Harris (2008) argues that we have far less control over our thoughts and feelings than we like to think. the idea that we can heal ourselves by controlling our unwanted thoughts is simply wishful thinking.
Willpower is a limited resource, and it is much better to manage our condition than to spend all our energy trying to avoid or change bad thoughts. instead, we should simply observe and accept them and then try to let them go. then we can invest our energies in what really matters: leading a life based on values and taking committed actions.
See Also: The 3 Best Music Theory Books For Guitarists – GuitarMeet
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5. aristotle’s way: how ancient wisdom can change your life – edith hall
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) believed that happiness is the ultimate goal of human life and our highest good. Moreover, it requires the fulfillment of our potential and the actualization of our highest human capacity.
Our primary function as human beings, Aristotle believed, is rational activity in accordance with virtue. Aristotelian happiness, then, is inextricably linked to repeated virtuous action.
To realize our potential, we have to work on our behavior and emotional responses to become the best versions of ourselves. Aristotle firmly believed that we can train ourselves to be good by strengthening our virtues and controlling our vices.
A happy state of mind, he wrote in Nicomachean Ethics, comes “from habitually doing the right thing” (hall, 2018, p. 7). Aristotle, then, already knew the vital power of habit. Instead of teaching and intellectual understanding, he regarded habituation as the main route to moral virtue.
In the Style of Aristotle: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (2018), classical scholar Edith Hall makes a charming and strong case for the relevance of Aristotle’s virtue ethics as a timeless self-help framework. it can also function as a powerful guide to the meaning of life.
hall points out that Aristotle’s idea of the good life (eudaimonia) emphasizes our moral responsibility for our actions. we have to actively “do” eudaimonia, because “for Aristotle, happiness is activity” (hall, 2018, p. 26).
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6. the power of now : a guide to spiritual enlightenment – eckhart tolle
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In his bestselling self-help book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, the German-born writer Eckhart Tolle (1999) argues that the meaning of life is simply being present.
but being truly present is far from a simple matter. The key to living in the present, Tolle writes, is to stop identifying with our mind and the unceasing, involuntary stream of thought that we tend to take as our personal essence.
Instead, we need to practice adopting the position of a disinterested observer, watching our minds chatter, but not taking the chattering too seriously.
Our true essence, then, is not found in our changing emotions or compulsive thoughts, but in what lies behind them. Like the Buddhists, Tolle believes that our very notion of self is an illusion, a figment of the mind that we must let go of. we need to learn to witness our thought patterns instead of identifying with them.
Most of our thoughts and emotions revolve around the past or the future. our past provides us with identity and narratives of cause and effect. our future, in turn, “has the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in any form” (tolle, 1999, p. 40). but both are illusions.
We need to practice withdrawing our attention from the past and the future and, instead, being present as “observers” of our minds. looking is all we need to do, and that includes refraining from analyzing and judging.
tolle (1999) writes that the present moment is all we have. the now is not only the most precious thing that exists, but it is also the only thing that exists. “Pay attention to the present,” she urges, “pay attention to your behavior, reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present” (Tolle, 1999, p. 75). Tolle sees this exclusive focus on the present as the royal road to our salvation.
as he says:
true salvation is a state of freedom: from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and thus from all desire, need, clinging and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from the past and the future as a psychological necessity (Tolle, 1999, p. 122).
there is nothing we can do or achieve, tolle writes, that brings us closer to salvation than this moment. By freeing ourselves from our bondage to our minds, we can radically transform our consciousness. and this radical transformation of consciousness is precisely what is needed to save not only ourselves but humanity in general and our planet.
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7. altruism: the science and psychology of kindness – matthieu ricard
The French-born Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is both a theorist and a practitioner of altruism.
He believes that the meaning of our lives is to practice altruism.
Altruism is the desire to ensure the good of others and to care for them benevolently. its Christian form (agape) is unconditional love for all: for ourselves, for our neighbors and for our enemies. but Buddhists go further, wishing the happiness of all sentient beings.
In Altruism: The Science and Psychology of Kindness, Ricard (2015) argues that the wider our circle of care extends and the more unconditional and inclusive it becomes, the more genuine our altruism.
We all have a biological tendency to worry about the well-being of our children, our family members, and the people who are kind to us. but we must cultivate the art of extending our altruism much further. “the quality and validity of an ethic increase with its degree of universality”, writes ricard (2015, p. 154).
In most religions, altruism is the highest moral and spiritual value. ricard presents altruism as the solution to all our problems – social, economic and environmental. altruism, he writes, “is the Ariadne thread that allows us to harmonically connect the challenges of the economy in the short term, the quality of life in the medium term, and our future environment in the long term” (ricard, 2015, p. 691) . ).
Buddhist altruism has two faces: loving-kindness and compassion. Buddhists wish not only that all beings find happiness, but also that they understand the causes of that happiness, as well as the causes of suffering. There is, then, an important insight-oriented dimension to Buddhist altruism. In other words, it’s not just a matter of the heart, but also of our rational brain.
Furthermore, as numerous psychologists have shown, engaging in altruistic acts not only makes others happier; it also makes the one who performs the act happier. it is, then, an old-fashioned win-win behavior.
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a message to take home
You will no doubt have noticed that some of the ideas about what constitutes the meaning of life explored above are contradictory. Some, like Epictetus and Tolle, argue that we can find meaning within ourselves by bolstering our defenses against the blows of fortune and being present.
frankl, aristotle, harris and ricard, by contrast, argue that meaning has to be located outside our own psyche. we need to do worthwhile deeds, they argue, and engage in meaningful and virtuous interactions with others. the dalai lama and ricard propose that our purpose in life is to practice kindness and altruism. Aristotle and Epictetus favor virtuous self-cultivation. they all present persuasive cases.
The lesson of all this is both banal and profound. the meaning is subjective it cannot be imposed. it has to be discovered or created. there is no single meaning that we can adopt.
some recipes and suggestions may resonate with us; others will not. But I fully agree with Frankl that there is no more pressing task than to begin the work of identifying what makes life meaningful to us. and when we know what is most meaningful to us, we must ensure that our lives are dedicated to serving these meanings and that we create the best possible conditions to realize them.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. don’t forget to download for free our three exercises of meaning and valuable life.
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