How a meaningless life could make you happier in 2022

Enjoying the little things...Ideas of meaning and purpose exist on a huge scale, but they remove us from the value in the everyday. Instead of worrying about what it all “means” in the face of eternity ask: what if I only had today? This wakes you up to the preciousness of pointless and forgettable moments.

In moments of high stress...When you feel overwhelmed by a situation, consider its impact in a month, a year, or (stick with me) when you’re dead and gone. In almost all cases, no one will remember it. It, like almost all things you do with your life, will have no impact on the wider world. In the larger scheme of things it’s meaningless. So, why a... See more

In the workplace...They’re pressing meaning into jobs because they don’t want to address the value. Meaning is made up. Value is real. It could be in the service a job’s doing for the wider community, skills it’s equipping you with, or simply your pay cheque.

If you can’t quantify your time in an understandably valuable way, people start looking for this opaque sense of meaning in their work, otherwise you’re just confronted with the fact that you’re doing all of this and not really getting anything out of it.”

The consequence of having your sense of value “artificially inflated” in this way can be particularly toxic in today’s workplace, she warns.

In theory it seems like it’s rewarding but when everything is such a thing it makes everything exhausting”.

Society, Syfret believes, has commodified “meaningfulness” so much that our quest to live purposeful lives — is only leaving us all stressed out, unfulfilled and unhappy.

Taking a wider perspective and looking at the bigger picture, say, by considering your job, income or relationship in the context of the universe, can be deeply “freeing”, she argues. “It makes you feel very small and, yes, that can be existentially terrifying but it also makes your problems feel very small.”

“mindful nihilism”, which is essentially a mindset that gives you the space to enjoy the simple moments in life available to you