Read the full transcript of social psychologist Brian S. Lowery’s talk titled “How to Live a Meaningful Life” at TED Talks 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Illusion of Achievement
Life is amazing. Life is incredible. The experiences we have, the possibilities of personal achievement. You could summit Everest. You could create a huge, successful business. You could give a TED Talk. And when you’re successful, it feels incredible. Success, the flush of excitement, the celebration. And you should celebrate. The congratulations, the posting on Instagram or wherever you put your stuff up. It all feels great.
But when that fades, when that starts to fade, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once, a question comes up: “Is this it? Is this all there is?”
A Personal Journey
I’m going to tell you a little story about myself, to give you a sense of this. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a professor at Stanford. When I got my job, I was elated, and a little bit terrified. I was terrified because when you get a job like that, you know you’re going to be reviewed in about seven years. And either you’re going to get tenure, more or less a job for life, or you’re going to get fired.
It’s a little bit like that movie “Glengarry Glen Ross,” the scene where Alec Baldwin’s character goes in to give the motivational speech, and he says, “It’s going to be a competition. First prize, Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize, set of steak knives. Third prize, you’re fired.” It’s a little bit like that, except there’s no second prize.
And it turns out, as you might imagine, that has a way of focusing your mind. So I was really, really focused on doing good research, getting my papers published, doing well in the classroom and all the other little things you need to do to get tenure. And seven years later, I made it.
And it was a huge relief, and I was so excited. But that question came up, is this it? Is this really all? All there is? And I reflected back, and I thought about the time I spent in undergrad, five years in grad school, the tears. And there were a lot of tears. The seven years of trying to get tenure. And I had expected, I had hoped that when I made it past that, when I succeeded, when I went through that threshold, life would feel different. I would feel fulfilled. It would feel meaningful to me. My life would feel meaningful. But it turns out that wasn’t what happened.
The Three Pillars of Meaningfulness
Now when psychologists talk about meaningfulness in life, what they’re talking about is a sense that our lives matter, that the world makes sense, that we are more than the sum of our minutes, days and years on this planet. The research on meaningfulness in life suggests there are three big ideas associated with meaningfulness in life.
1. Coherence
The first big idea is coherence. The world needs to feel coherent. After winter comes spring. After spring comes summer. You get up in the morning, brush your teeth, have breakfast, get the kids off to school, go to work. Those little routines make the world feel knowable, predictable, coherent.
Now when you think about personal achievement, it does create, sometimes, this experience of coherence, because we achieve within a framework. I understood what they expected of me for tenure. I understood that if I got my papers published, I did well in the classroom, talked to the right people, did all the networking, there was a good chance I’d get tenure. If you’re trying to lose weight, you understand if you change your diet, you exercise, the weight will come off. Or at least we hope so. Now those things, that framework gives the world a sense of coherence.
Second big idea associated with meaningfulness in life: purpose. Now, sometimes, people use the term purpose as a synonym for meaning in life. And that’s not how I mean it here. Purpose is a way of thinking about what your life can be and should be in the future. It’s a way of directing your actions. It gives you goals. When you get up in the morning, you know what you need to do.
Here’s where the drive for personal achievement is strongest. It’s clearest. When I was worried about tenure, I knew exactly what I needed to do when I got up in the morning. When you have a goal, when you’re trying to achieve something, you have a clarity about what you should do, how to direct your behavior. So that’s the second big idea, it’s purpose.
3. Significance
Now the third big idea, by many considered to be the most important, is significance. And the way I like to think about significance is the sense that you can transcend yourself, that you are more than what you are right now, that you will continue to matter into the future, beyond this moment. This is where I think personal achievement falls short. By definition, personal achievement focuses on you, to focus on the self. And if that’s all there is, it’s difficult to have significance.
The Limitations of Personal Achievement
So now I want to think about meaningfulness in life and significance in particular. It brings to mind a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Some of you might know it. So Leonardo da Vinci was purported to have said, on his deathbed: “I have offended God and mankind, because my work did not achieve the quality it should have.”
Now I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if he said that exactly in that way. But here’s the thing: you can imagine it, you understand it. You understand what it means to have even the most glorious achievements and still ask, is this enough? Is this it? Is this all I add up to?
Finding Meaning Through Others
When I look back and think about my time early on in my career, I think about when did it feel meaningful.
What gave me a sense of meaning? What I think about were my PhD students. So one of the things that faculty do is train the next generation of faculty. And so you have PhD students for a significant amount of time, often could be five to six years. And the relationships are pretty intense.
Let me tell you about my first student, Miguel Unzueta. So Miguel was born in El Paso, Texas, in a relatively low-income area. Really smart kid. Does well in school, ends up at the University of Texas at Austin, which is a great university. Does well there, eventually ends up in the PhD program at Stanford.
So Miguel gets there the year before I do. And by his own account, he’s having a tough time. It’s a little rough, in part because he doesn’t have the cultural capital that many people that go places like Stanford have. He doesn’t understand how the place works, so he’s struggling a little bit.
Now when I arrive, I’m really impressed, because he’s so smart, he’s ambitious, and he’s asking questions and interested in things that I’m interested in. So I’m really excited to work with him. And so we started to work together and again, it’s really intense. I’m working with him for four years. We see each other almost every day for those four years. And some days, we’re working together 10 to 12 hours a day. So it’s a very intense experience.
And what I remember about that time was that I was really worried about doing enough to make sure he would be successful. I was concerned, “Am I being a good advisor? Am I giving him what he needs? Am I helping him in his story?” Now keep in mind I want to get tenure. I still think I’m going to get fired. So even with that fear, I’m worried about what do I need to do to make sure Miguel can continue in his story and his journey.
And by the way, he did. He’s been great. He got a job. He’s been a professor now for over 15 years at UCLA. He’s had serious leadership roles at his university, and I’m incredibly proud that I got a chance to be a little part of that.
What do I take from that? I take from that is that relationships are what provide us meaning. And my guess is you already knew that. I’m saying something a little bit more than that. Not just that relationships provide meaning, but that being a part of a story that is not your own provides meaning. Being a part of a story that is not your own provides meaning.
The Balance Between Achievement and Meaning
So where does this leave us? One, I think personal achievement is great. Like, I love my personal achievements. I’m really happy with my life. I think it’s turned out OK. I wish incredible personal achievements for all of you. So I think that personal achievement is fantastic.
However, sometimes we replace the deep human need for meaning with chasing of personal achievement, and it’s a problem when we confuse those two things. And the reason they get confused, the reason it’s easy to confuse them is because personal achievement is easy to quantify. You know if you got that job, if you bought that home, you know what your salary is. It’s easy to see and it feels comfortable to chase things you understand and you can achieve. That’s one reason.
The other reason is that personal achievement feels good. Personal achievement feels good. We think what we want is happiness, and personal achievement provides a hit of happiness. It feels fantastic when you make that achievement. Getting meaning doesn’t necessarily feel that way. For example, studies find that parents who spend more time parenting their children report more meaningfulness in life, but not necessarily more happiness. So these things are not the same.
How to Cultivate Meaning in Life
So if you want more meaning in life, what is there to do?
Look for opportunities to participate in others’ stories. And it’s funny I’m saying this as I’m standing on this stage in the circle, but there’s a lot of main character energy, I would argue, in this room right now. It’s fantastic, I love it. However, you might try a little supporting actor energy, if you want meaning. Play a supporting role in other people’s lives. That’s number one.
Accept that the pursuit of meaning may not generate happiness. The pursuit of meaning might not generate happiness. In fact, it might be uncomfortable. It turns out that meaning is more associated with the self providing for others than providing for you, for yourself. And that’s sometimes a hard thing to do. Expending effort, emotional energy on behalf of something that is not going to return happiness is not something that we tend to think of as a good use of our time. But it turns out it does produce meaning.
Let me say just a couple more things. One, I think the human need and pursuit of meaning is both beautiful and profound, because when you have meaning in your life, that means that someone else gave you the opportunity to participate in a story that is not your own. And for the meaning you have in your life, you should feel a deep gratitude for the people who have allowed you to participate in the story that it was not your own.
On the other side, when you allow people to participate in your life, you’re giving them the opportunity to generate meaning. And so in that way, the deep, deep human need for meaning connects us in a circle, I think a beautiful and profound circle of generosity and gratitude. And so right now here, I’m deeply grateful that you all have let me participate in your stories. And that’s deeply meaningful for me.
The Brave and the Brilliant
The theme of this conference is “The Brave and the Brilliant.” I think that one way that we can experience or be brave is by accepting the fact that our personal achievements, what we’re capable of, the things that we’ve done, pale in comparison to the effect we have on other people and what that does in the world.
And that is, you go through the world with all of your brilliance, and I mean that in terms of light, as you go through the world, lighting the world, when you interact with other people and you illuminate them and help them shine more brightly, that’s how the world gets illuminated. That’s how we bring up the lights. And the world, obviously, desperately needs that.
And in return, what you get is meaning, because when we’re gone, all of the accomplishments will mean nothing. The only thing that will be left of you when you’re gone — and we all will be gone eventually — the only thing will be left of you is the role you played in other people’s stories, what you leave with other people, how that reverberates through time. And that is a beautiful thing, and I wish all of that for you.
