https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/arthur-brooks-why-your-perfect-life-feels-so-empty<\/a> ]<\/p>\nHere\u2019s how his essay starts:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret that we are living at a time of profound unhappiness. According to the\u00a0General Social Survey, the percentage of American adults of all ages who are \u2018not too happy\u2019 about their lives more than doubled from 2000 to 2024. Young adults were hit especially hard: The percentage of American adolescents with symptoms of major depression\u00a0nearly\u00a0tripled\u00a0from 2005 to 2019, while anxiety\u00a0almost doubled.\u201d<\/p>\n
But \u201cthe really weird part,\u201d Brooks says, is that those suffering most \u201care not just the down-and-out types \u2014 the addicts, the impoverished, the failsons. Those for whom there are obvious things gone\u00a0wrong\u00a0in their lives. On the contrary, it is also those who seem to have everything going\u00a0right\u00a0for them \u2014 in other words, our young and most successful strivers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks writes about the despair he encounters among his students at Harvard. I don\u2019t want to do him the injustice of boiling down what he says into the limited space I have here. Go read his essay. You\u2019ll thank me.<\/p>\n
Having just marked my 70th birthday, however, I found his observations prompted me to think about The Meaning of Life (hat tip to Monty Python). I realized I\u2019ve led an existence that, although ordinary and obscure, has provided me spiritual and emotional satisfaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also been fortunate enough to know a number of other fulfilled, happy people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For what it\u2019s worth, I thought I\u2019d suggest some qualities (States of mind? Pursuits? \u2026 I\u2019m not sure what to call them) I believe are more satisfying than getting another raise at work, buying a bigger car or winning a professional award.<\/p>\n
You want life to have meaning? Build it around these things:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Love: Each of us needs someone or something to love profoundly, more than we love ourselves. Deep love helps us set aside our petty meanness, jealousy and narcissism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For biblical writers, naturally, the most satisfying object of human love was God.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But not everybody is capable of loving God. Fortunately, love directed at a lesser object can be effective, too: a spouse, a child, a close friend, a dog, the sea. Everybody needs to love somebody or something.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Faith: Humans are born for faith, just as we\u2019re born to love. That\u2019s why religion never really goes away, even in supposedly atheistic states such as the old Soviet Union or in skeptical times when scientific materialism becomes the supposed answer to all questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Again, not everybody will believe in God, but everybody needs to believe in something transcendent. In lieu of religion it might be world peace, or the environment, or better healthcare, or patriotism, or the transforming power of art.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve rarely met a fulfilled person who didn\u2019t believe there was a cause greater than his own selfish wants.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Hope: The Greek word used in the Bible for \u201chope\u201d has a different inflection than what we usually mean today when we say \u201chope.\u201d The biblical word means \u201ca joyful expectation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I might say, \u201cI bought a Power Ball ticket. I sure hope I hit that jackpot!\u201d But I know the odds are overwhelmingly against me.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the biblical word means we possess a happy confidence that better things are coming. Without this hope, the daily struggle to conquer our troubles feels pointless; with it, our efforts become investments toward the future.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Benevolence: We should try to look for the best in every situation and hope for the best for everyone, friend or stranger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming the worst about them. We help those who are weaker or poorer rather than ignore or blame them. We regard life as a blessing we\u2019ve been granted and earth as a beautiful place to call home, despite all the ills we must endure. We live with our hearts and hands open.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Humor: Nothing lifts the spirit more effectively than a belly laugh or a pithy one-liner. The ability to see the absurdities around us and poke fun at them neutralizes much pain. Laughter drowns despair. Few things are more corrosive than taking ourselves too seriously.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mercy: We learn mercy as the years reveal our imperfections. We see our own ridiculous arrogance. We stare daily at the dross of our failures. This can produce in us a compassion toward others who\u2019ve failed. We understand we\u2019re all just muddling through.<\/p>\n
As we join this fellowship of the forlorn, something glorious happens. We find a lightness of the soul. We no longer have to be perfect, because we can\u2019t be. We don\u2019t expect others to be perfect. We wake up swimming in a sea of pure grace. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(OPINION) Perhaps you\u2019ve noticed this paradox. People seek a sense of fulfillment \u2014 a purpose for which to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-388842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}