Purpose Anxiety: The Fear of not Knowing your Purpose in Life

“What am I here for?” is one of the oldest questions humans have been grappling with. For millennia, religion has provided for many a source of meaning — the comforting idea that someone was in control and that, even if we didn’t have the ability to comprehend it all, the world ultimately made sense. With … Read More

How to measure meaning in life

Philosophers and psychologists alike have long argued about the definition and factors of a meaningful life. What does it mean to live a meaningful life? Is meaningfulness necessary for happiness? While these questions may seem to belong to the realm of the metaphysical, meaningfulness is actually associated with greater well-being, and scientists have even devised … Read More

The neuroscience of ikigai

I lived in Japan for seven months when I was younger. For all of the challenges I faced there as a woman and a foreigner, I still was fascinated by the culture. Because Japan experienced a long period of relative isolation from the outside world—caused by sakoku (“closed country”), the isolationist foreign policy of the … Read More