Arthur C. Brooks breaks meaning into three questions: Coherence, why events happen as they do; Purpose, why we do what we do; and Significance, why our lives matter. Instead of chasing an abstract notion of meaning, examine these three domains in love, family, friendships, and work.
If any problem in your life is too big, you have to decompose it. If you're like, I feel really sad and depressed, well, take apart the different parts of your life. My love life, my family life, my friendships, my work. So when it comes to meaning, which is the biggest hairy problem out there, you have to decompose it. And the meaning of life can be decomposed into 3 big why questions. Those big why questions are number 1, the coherence question. Why do things happen the way they do? You have to have a theory of why things happen the way that they do. Maybe it's a religious belief. Maybe it's a scientific belief. For me, it's both. I'm both religious and scientific. So that's coherence. The second is purpose. Why am I doing all this stuff that I'm doing? I mean, the worst days when you're writing your big bestseller— congratulations, by the way— thank you, thank you— you'd be like, why am I doing this? You know, that existential crisis that you feel. Why am I doing this? And but that's this sense of purpose, like, why am I doing what I'm doing? And those moments are really, really hard. Yeah, you have to have an idea. Why am I doing what I'm doing? And last but not least, there's significance, and that's the biggie. Why does my life matter, and to whom? And if you're like, I don't know, or no one, that's a big problem. And so those are the three big questions. Don't go try to find meaning. Examine the three questions of why, and then you'll be on the right track through that decomposition.
