David MinorOne of the primary drivers of the sky-rocketing depression rates in the global west is that many people don’t know how to find purpose. Purpose is the reason that you get up in the morning, it’s what motivates you to rise to the difficulties that life inevitably brings, and enables you to be content with your lot in life. The way to find purpose is to invest in meaningful relationships, find engaging work, enjoy the pleasure of play, and connect to spirituality.
Meaningful Relationships
Meaningful relationships are by far the most important thing for humans to be happy, healthy and long-lived. This finding is confirmed by the Grant Study, the longest and largest study of human health in history. There are many barriers to meaningful relationships in today’s world such as: transient lifestyle, the breakdown of family, and (anti) social media.
Transient Lifestyle
People often move for work, school, or to find more optimal housing. Every time you move you have to find and build new relationships which take time and energy. If you know you or someone else is going to move soon it reduces the motivation to put in the work to make relationships more meaningful.
The longer you know someone the deeper the friendship and the more satisfying and meaningful the relationship. That’s not to say you can’t have a deep friendship form quickly, or a long-term relationship remain at the superficial level. The point is that meaningful relationships take time.
Ways to Remain Rooted
When considering moving for work or school stop and think. Is this move really necessary? Will the bump in financial opportunity be worth the relational cost? Is there any way that I can remain where I am and still achieve my life goals?
When you are weighing the cost benefit of moving, remember that relationships trump money every time in terms of well-being. One of the biggest costs of moving is that children lose touch with grandparents, aunts and uncles. This extended tribe is essential to healthy development, but rarely prioritised in our daily lives.
The Breakdown of Family
Some of the happiest countries in the world exist in Latin America, despite being very poor in comparison with Canada and the US. How can they achieve these higher levels of happiness while living in relative deprivation? A big factor is they highly value the family. Family is everything, and being close to family physically and emotionally is essential to their way of life. In Canada and the US we often move out at age 18 without looking back (that’s what I did).
Once on our own we may visit family sporadically but as parents age they are put in a retirement home where they are vulnerable to loneliness and isolation. For younger generations it’s become increasingly common to cut parents out of their lives completely due to differing political beliefs, something that was almost unheard of 20 years ago. How can we reverse this familial erosion?
Weave Family into Your Routine
Living together or in closer proximity to family is a big step in prioritizing family. Scheduling regular family get-together or family meals is also key. I and my family have dinner with my in-laws on a weekly basis and usually there is a larger family get together every couple months. It’s a great opportunity for my son to see his cousins and makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger.
Regular family dinners without phones is also a way to prioritise family relationships on a daily basis. These things take planning, time and energy but the return on investment you’ll receive in feelings of love, connectedness and purpose are well worth it.
Anti-Social Media
Social media is not social, it’s anti-social. I’m not saying that online relationships aren’t valuable or real. My best friend and I maintain a deep meaningful relationship with weekly 30 minute phone calls, and only see each other in person once every 2-3 months. Another close friend and I met during an online training in 2020 and we still have yet to meet in person four years on! The problem isn’t being online, it’s what you are doing online.
Social media apps are designed to drive clicks, not connection. They’re built to make money, not meaning. The biggest way they sap our purpose is by creating a blackhole of time we could be using to connect with loved ones or enjoy life in the present moment. It also leads to comparison which can take away contentment in life. Unplugging completely isn’t necessary, but healthy boundaries with social media are a must for increasing purpose.
Social Media Minimalism
How can you engage with social media in a way that benefits you without the negative side effects? One way to test this is by taking a complete break from social media for a week and see what you missed most about it. Most people they use it to message friends and find that doom-scrolling is the most pointless aspect.
I use facebook for marketplace, and linkedin in for networking. I only use these apps on my desktop and use an extension called newsfeed eradicator that blocks out the most addicting feature (the newsfeed). But I only go on those apps for a specific purpose when I want to. It’s given me so much time to enjoy life and I don’t feel like I’m ever missing out on anything.
Find Contentment in Work
One of the biggest myths about work which leads to unnecessary stress and anxiety is that if you follow your passion you will be happy. Nothing could be further from the truth! That’s not to say you shouldn’t be passionate about your work, it’s just that your work doesn’t need to involve something you’re passionate about for you to be happy.
The three most important factors in finding contentment in work are: engaging work, work that helps others, and a supportive work environment.
Engaging Work
The amount of money you make and your status aren’t really that important for job satisfaction. The most important thing is rather what you are doing day to day and hour to hour. What is engaging to you might be mind numbing to someone else. Going to a career counsellor and reflecting on the type of work that you enjoy in past jobs and why can help in this regard.
Other factors that are important for engaging work include: the freedom to decide how to do your work, clear tasks that have a beginning and end, a wide variety of tasks, and feedback from management to let you know how you’re doing. Starting to see how these relate for more to how you are being managed and less about what you’re doing? Engaging work is also work that you are good at and feel challenged with. Too much challenge and you feel overwhelmed, not enough and you’re bored.
Work that Helps Others
People who enjoy their work often can see a connection between what they are doing and bringing value to the world that improves people’s lives. They believe in what they are selling. This doesn’t mean that you have to work for a non-profit to be fulfilled. For many of my clients a mindset shift can help them to see the ways their company does help people can do more for them than finding a different job.
For example if you work for a big tech company like Microsoft or Amazon it can make you a bit jaded because you see how the sausage gets made. But ultimately the measure of whether something is helping others isn’t what’s happening behind close doors, it’s is the customer’s happiness. I love using Microsoft because it’s the best word processing software. Google docs have revolutionised how I can organise my personal files, and I’m so thankful it’s free.
Supportive Work Environment
Having a manager who understands your work style and communicates well, a team that is supportive and available, and a company culture that fosters the health and well-being of it’s employees are important factors in finding contentment in work. There is no perfect company, or manager. The most important thing is that it’s not a toxic work environment, and there is a way to foster connection and mutual support and respect with colleagues.
A lot of this is within your own sphere of control. You can control how you communicate with your boss. You can control initiative, connection and conversation with colleagues. Ultimately if the company’s policy or practices are core to the unhealthy environment it may be best to leave.
Work is not Primary
Even if you have all of the above things, work can still be a major source of anxiety and stress for a lot of my colleagues. This is most often the case with people who have poor work boundaries and don’t prioritise meaningful relationships. “I wish I had spent more time at work than with my family and friends” said no-one ever on their deathbed. If you are constantly working and or thinking about work then you will be highly vulnerable to work related stressors because it’s taking up the lion’s share of your thoughts throughout the day. If this is you some ways to reverse the trend is having hard stop and start times for work, putting your laptop/phone away when you’re not working, and prioritizing spending time with family and friends.
Addicted to Pleasure
We live in a society where addiction abound. From the deadly opioid crisis to the low level phone addiction we all experience, our society is on a constant dopamine quest that detracts from true enjoyment and pleasure in life. In her book Dopamine Nation psychiatrist Anne Lembke talks about how there needs to be a balance of pleasure and pain in our lives.
If we seek only pleasure and avoid all pain, paradoxically we end up experiencing more pain in the end. The most obvious example is someone who overeats and rarely exercises. Eating is pleasure, and exercise is painful. But if we don’t experience some pain then pleasure eating will cause us more pain in the form of lethargy and health problems.
Re-igniting Play
Play and recreation are the spice of life. They are what bring joy and happiness to the routine nature of being. However we often seek enjoyment through passive forms of play (i.e. watching TV) which aren’t truly relaxing and don’t fully engage our being. Truly restorative play comes from engaging our creative faculty and our unique way of playing.
Think about what you did for fun as a child.
This will give you a hint about what your play personality is. The type of play that makes you feel most alive. For me it’s sports because I love moving my body and competition. I also enjoy music and art so playing my guitar and making a card for a loved one fill my cup.
Connect to Spirituality
An essential link to the purpose puzzle is spirituality. Spirituality is a way of being that recognizes that we are all interconnected. It is something to be cherished and it values relationships and giving back to the community more than personal fulfilment and financial gain. In our individualistic society which is focused on self-actualization, a spiritual way of being highly values taking on responsibility, resting from work, being present in the moment and taking one day at a time.
As a productivity addict I can attest that spirituality is essential for me to avoid burnout (even when I’m engaging in healthy work, relationships and play) because without it I cram my schedule so full I become exhausted. Worshipping productivity also takes me out of the moment because I’m constantly thinking of what I could be doing that is more productive. Spirituality has been essential in healing my productivity addiction.
Centering What’s Important
I’m a Christian and pray four times a day morning, noon, evening and night. This grounds me in a story bigger than myself and connects me to the love of God. Prayer energises me to engage mindfully in my relationships, work and play. I also take one full day off from all work and chores to connect with God, others, and myself. This helps me to rest from the week and begin anew on Monday refreshed.
Spirituality slows you down and provides you an opportunity to constantly remind yourself about what’s important in life. If you don’t have a spiritual belief or practice starting out with 5 minutes of mindfulness or journalling a day is a great start. Forming spiritual habits along with prioritising first relationship, then work, then play will help you find purpose in an increasingly nihilistic world.