This is one of those books that can change the way you look at life and change your life if you let it. Ever wonder why some of the richest/first world countries are rated the "happiest" countries but have the highest suicide rates as compared to some of the poorest/third world countries? Meaning. People in poorer countries see their lives as more meaningful even if they have to work harder and suffer more. Having focus on other people versus yourself (like in individualistic -centered societies) has made people feel like their lives are more meaningful. Just because your life is easier and you do not have to worry about day to day survival doesn't always mean you see a purpose or meaning to life. There are studies and research throughout this book as well as stories to illustrate the point of having a meaningful life versus a happy life. It gives you ideas and inspires you to make your life more meaningful as well.

This book took me a long time to read for such a short book but I was constantly looking things up or just thinking about what I read that I felt that it was well worth the read. I will definitely be rereading this book for ideas and inspiration.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from a NetGalley for review consideration.

In Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, Martin Seligman recalls visiting his father in a nursing home and witnessing his father’s despair after being disabled by a series of strokes. Then as a student and later a professor of psychology, Seligman saw helplessness again and again, in lab animals that had been inadvertently conditioned not to attempt control over their environment, and in depressed people who reported feeling empty. Seligman went on to prove that it was possible to lift people out of despair by changing their beliefs about their circumstances; you can teach optimism and resilience. Seligman’s work helped divert psychology from cataloging mental aberrations and toward the study of psychological strengths, and positive psychology was born.
While Learned Optimism is an illuminating look at the founding of positive psychology, it’s not the best introduction to the field for laymen, as it alternates between verbatim schema from Seligman’s research and anecdotes about his children and ex-wife. Emily Esfahani Smith gives a much more accessible overview of positive psychology in The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters. With generous hand-holding, Smith describes studies on the importance of community, transcendent experiences, and other “pillars of meaning” for psychological well-being.
Smith has interviewed many people who have found some kind of purpose or meaning in life, and some of the stories of overcoming adversity begin to blur together. A few stand out, such as that of a man who was imprisoned for dealing drugs, got in a fight, and ended up in solitary confinement. He was given a pen, an envelope, paper, and a Bible. He wrote a letter to his family, but without a stamp, he was unable to send it. Then he received a letter from his sister recommending that he read Psalm 91. When he opened the Bible to that psalm, he found a stamp between its pages. He was able to mail his letter, and after he was released, he opened a personal training business based on a fitness program he had invented in prison.
Also moving is a story from Smith’s own life. In the introduction, Smith explains that she grew up in a Sufi meetinghouse. She writes nostalgically of the devotion of the darvishes, who often traveled great distances to come to her house and meet a visiting mystic. Every act of the Sufis’ religious practice was imbued with meaning, and Smith would try to imitate their manner of drinking tea and meditating. But when Smith was a teenager, her family “drifted away” from Sufism and left her searching for another source of meaning to replace it.
Smith assures us that the precepts of positive psychology are an ample substitute for her lost childhood faith, but it’s hard to believe her. That’s not to say that the research isn’t valuable. Some of the studies she cites are genuinely clever or instructive, such as one that induced awe in an experimental group by positioning the subjects beneath a large replica of a dinosaur skeleton, and another that tracked the effects of a purposeful job description on fundraisers at a university call center. After they learned how their work was helping a scholarship recipient, the fundraisers spent more time on the phone and raised more money than their coworkers in a control group.
What’s unconvincing about the idea of a meaningful-but-not-religious life based on Smith’s four pillars is that the advice presented here has no encompassing narrative, despite the fact that one of the pillars is storytelling. Each of the studies that Smith writes about examines an isolated aspect of a meaningful life, and the examples often feature adherents of religions or philosophies. But since psychologists are not concerned with choosing between cultures, their recommendations can be applied to any beliefs and are kind of vacuous in the aggregate.
It appears that Buddha, existentialism, and a jousting club all have equal claims to creating meaning, as long as they can clear a few easy hurdles like forming a community and motivating people to act. Choosing from the available meaning sources for the purpose of maintaining psychological health is not a very significant choice, then, since any other option could have been just as therapeutic. This could be even more of a problem for the people who sample the suggested meaningful activities without settling on a belief system at all. Chasing after meaning through incidental attendance at stargazing night or StoryCorps could prove just as unsatisfying as chasing after happiness, which Smith rightly concludes is a way to disappointment.
The absence of a frame of reference also means that there is little acknowledgement that meaning sources can conflict with each other. In Smith’s telling, meaning is almost always good. Only in the final chapter does Smith briefly mention that people can find meaning in evil, as for example recruits find meaning in ISIS. It’s clear from just a passing reference to ISIS that meaning is not sufficient for either individual or societal well-being and that meaning sources must be measured against other values. But Smith doesn’t explore what those values might be and merely trusts readers to pursue meaning virtuously.
The Power of Meaning has some sensible suggestions for people who want to do something fulfilling: be involved in a community, find a purpose, and seek transcendence. The advice will be much easier to follow if you already have a philosophy or faith in which to carry it out. It probably won’t teach anyone to craft a meaningful life from scratch, although it may give you some ideas for adding meaning on the margins.