Positively Non-Religious

Fact:  being religious is associated with improved psychological well-being (that is, being happier and enjoying better mental health).

That’s bad news for us non-religious folks, right?  Not necessarily.

Research has revealed that a significant portion of the improved well-being religious people experience is due to feeling that their lives are meaningful.  Without religion, though, there are still many things we can do to cultivate meaning in our own lives.  While the lack of belief in any higher power(s) keeps us from believing that there’s an overall meaning of life, we can still have a sense of meaning within our lives.  In doing so, we’ll be able to enjoy some of the improved well-being that religious people get from their religion.

What exactly is “meaning,” anyhow?  Good question.  That’s something that will probably be debated for a while to come.  Some think that meaning results from participating and contributing to a cause that’s larger than yourself.  Others argue that meaning comes from a sense of coherence in your life.  Personally, I prefer the perspective that meaning is a subjective, individual judgment that can draw upon a lot of different sources of information.  So it could be all, some, or none of the above, depending on the individual judging his or her life’s meaningfulness.

One thing that’s surprisingly influential in a person’s sense of meaning in life is his or her current mood.  There’s a strong link between feeling positive emotions and, at the same time, feeling that your life is meaningful.  This could tie in with the coherence argument.  We often intuitively expect the world to be a good place and see ourselves as good people who deserve to be happy.  So when we feel positive emotions, our current experience is coherent with our expectations, and voila — life feels meaningful.

Therefore, one way we can cultivate a sense of meaning in our lives is to seek out and savor positive emotions.  Of course, not all positive emotions are equal.  Some potential sources of positive emotion (e.g., eating junk food, procrastinating, or using drugs and alcohol) are only enjoyable in the short-term. If we use these methods too much or too often, they become self-defeating and cause far more negative emotions than positive ones.  Other potential sources of positive emotions (e.g., cultivating healthy relationships with family and friends, exercise, hard work, or achievement) are a lot more likely to continue to cause us more and more positive emotions as we spend more time with them.

Another possible source of information that can make your life feel more meaningful is your “true self.”  Even though the phrase, “just be yourself,” may be an over-used bit of folk wisdom, it turns out this advice is pretty spot-on.  A series of psychological studies looked at how readily accessible college students’ true-self concepts were.  Those students who were faster at identifying whether or not adjectives described their true selves had higher meaning-in-life ratings.  Intriguingly, rather than measuring reaction times, some of these studies subliminally flashed the students’ true-self-concept adjectives at them on a computer screen.  Even though the students didn’t realize they’d been exposed to them, the ones who’d been primed with their true-self-concept words then judged their lives as more meaningful.

So, being in touch with your true self is another way to cultivate a sense of meaning in your life.  Having authentic relationships with people that accept you despite your flaws is one way to do this.  It’s also worthwhile to do things in your free time that allow you to get in touch with your true self, such as keeping a private journal or meditating.  Personally, I think that the true self parallels the religious idea of a soul.  In The Reason-Driven Life, Robert M. Price asserts that what the Bible really means by “soul” is one’s integrity (as in this verse:  For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?).  Indeed, integrity is all about being authentic to your true self and your core values.  But, as the aforementioned research demonstrates, simply being aware of your true self, and having a well-defined concept of what it is, can be enough to benefit you.

Of course, there are a lot of other factors that can contribute to having a sense of meaning in life, but my own understanding of this concept is still limited.  If I learn anything new and exciting in the future, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, you can go here to take a gander at the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), a well-researched, reliable measure of meaning in life.  Or you can take an interactive version of the MLQ here, where you’ll be able to see the percentile rank of your life’s self-rated meaningfulness after you’re done.  But this isn’t a Facebook quiz — don’t worry about impressing your friends with your score.  If you take the online version, try to be completely honest with yourself.

-Shane