What creates meaning or purpose in life, in general and for yourself? What difference does having a purpose make?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Why do we exist? What is our purpose in life? These age-old questions relate to our search for life's meaning. As you will recall from Chapter 1, Antonovsky's salutogenic model includes a sense of coherence (SOC) concept, and meaningfulness is the most important of SOC's three components (i.e., comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness). Though there are many different definitions of meaning, Steger defines meaning in life as "the extent to which people comprehend, make sense of, or see significance in their lives, accompanied by the degree to which they perceive themselves to have a purpose, mission, or overarching aim in life." From this definition we can see that meaning in life reflects both a cognitive component (comprehension) and a motivational component (purpose).

Steger states that "across many studies, most people have indicated that relationships with others are the most important source of meaning in their lives." As we can see, themes of comprehension, purpose, meaning, and coherence seem to interweave to form the complex patterns and fabric of our world view that we can then apply not only to ourselves, but to others in our lives, and to our relationships. From this world view we gain a big picture perspective that promotes a better understanding of our place in the world and what we are meant to do with our lives. There is also growing evidence that engaging in religious/spiritual organizational activity confers positive effects on both health and well-being.