There are moments when I catch myself asking a very simple question: Am I contributing to making the world a better place in any way?
Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, founder of logotherapy, believed that our primary drive is not the pursuit of pleasure or power, but the search for meaning. After surviving the concentration camps, he observed that even in the harshest conditions, people could endure almost anything if they felt their life still had purpose. Meaning, in his view, is not a luxury. It’s fuel.
Positive psychology has continued exploring this idea, and what fascinates me is how biology seems to support it. Researchers at Rush University Medical Center found that people with a strong sense of life purpose showed significantly better cognitive functioning, even when facing Alzheimer’s disease. Purpose appeared to act almost like a protective factor.
Barbara Fredrickson, a leading positive psychology researcher, and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina went even further. Their studies showed that people with a high sense of life purpose had healthier gene expression in pathways connected to immune function. Those with low life purpose showed impaired activity in those same pathways.
Our genes may actually reward us for being connected to something larger than ourselves. Meaning is not abstract philosophy; it’s embodied. When times are tough, purpose becomes life fuel. It organizes our energy, calms our nervous system, and gives pain a container.
Meaning is less about grand missions and more about alignment. Are my actions and my work aligned with my values?
To me, contribution can look like making art with meaning. It can look like listening to another disheartened human being or holding steady during difficult times. Most importantly, it looks like not giving up on my dreams, no matter how foolish they may appear to others.
We don’t need to be rich or famous. We just need to be connected to a cause, a person, a practice, a belief, a way of serving that feels larger than our own comfort.
When we lose that connection, we lose our direction. When we restore it, something in us reorganizes. Maybe that’s meaning. Maybe that’s purpose. Or maybe it’s simply remembering that our lives matter and that connection helps us remain steady when circumstances feel uncertain or chaotic.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and asking myself: Am I contributing enough? If not, where am I holding back and why?