I once asked him a question that had quietly bothered me for years: “Why do people who seem to have everything still feel empty?”
He looked at me for a moment and said, “What do you mean by everything?”
“Comfort, I suppose. Money. Status. Security. Entertainment. The freedom to do almost whatever they want.”
“And none of those seem sufficient?”
“Not always.”
I thought of several people I had known over the years. Some had achieved much of what others spend their lives pursuing. Their careers were successful. Their finances were stable. Their lives appeared comfortable from the outside. Yet whenever I spent enough time with them, I sensed a restlessness that those achievements hadn’t resolved. At the same time, I had known people whose circumstances were objectively more difficult. They carried burdens others did not. Yet they often had an aliveness that seemed strangely absent in people with easier lives.
He nodded and said, “So perhaps comfort and meaning are not the same thing.”
I expected a more satisfying answer. I asked, “Isn’t comfort part of a good life?”
“Of course it is. Rest matters. Pleasure matters. Security matters. There is nothing admirable about making life unnecessarily difficult.”
He paused for some time, and then added, “But suppose every discomfort disappeared. Would that automatically answer the question, What is my life for?”
I thought about it. “No,” I finally said.
He smiled faintly and said, “Then perhaps comfort solves one kind of human problem without solving another.”
That distinction stayed with me.
For much of my life, I assumed dissatisfaction meant something was missing from a person’s circumstances. More success. More recognition. More freedom. More enjoyable experiences. If enough problems could be removed and enough pleasures added, fulfillment would surely follow. Yet experience kept complicating that theory. A person could possess comfort and still wonder why any of it mattered.
After a few moments, he asked, “Have you ever been busy and yet strangely empty?”
I laughed and said, “More than once.”
“What was missing?”
The question immediately brought a particular period of my life to mind. My days were full. Meetings, responsibilities, deadlines, projects. From the outside, it looked productive. In fact, if someone had asked me whether I was accomplishing things, I would have said yes. Yet there was a question quietly following me through all of it. Why does any of this matter? I wasn’t asking it consciously every day. But I could feel its presence. Eventually I said, “I think I lost sight of why I was doing any of it.”
He nodded. “That is different from being tired.”
I thought about it for a moment and then said, “I was tired too. But this felt deeper.”
“Perhaps you were not only short of energy,” he said. “Perhaps you were short of meaning.”
That was the first time the word came up in our conversation.
After a pause, he asked, “Have you read Viktor Frankl?”
“Only a little.”
He nodded. “Frankl developed what became known as logotherapy around a deceptively simple idea: human beings do not merely seek pleasure, power, or the reduction of discomfort. We also need to experience life as meaningful.”
I had heard that idea before. Yet hearing it beside the discussion of comfort made it feel more concrete.
“So meaning was the main thing he thought people were looking for?” I asked.
“He described the search for meaning as a central human motivation.”
Then he added a qualification I appreciated. “That doesn’t mean meaning explains everything. Human beings are more complicated than that.”
I nodded.
He continued: “Depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, and many other forms of suffering can arise from numerous causes. Meaning is not a replacement for treatment. It is not a cure-all.”
“Then why is it so important?”
“Because even when you understand symptoms, habits, and emotions, something important may remain unexplored if you never ask what a person’s life is oriented toward.”
He paused. “What are they living for?”
That question felt larger than I expected. We often ask people what they want. What career do you want? What kind of house? What income? What lifestyle? What experiences? But what are you living for? belonged to an entirely different category.
It forced me to think not merely about what I hoped to obtain, but about what made obtaining anything worthwhile in the first place.
Seeing my expression, he offered an example: “Imagine two people doing equally demanding work.”
I nodded.
“Same hours. Same effort. Same salary.” He said. “One experiences the work as something to endure until payday. The other believes the work contributes to something deeply important. Wouldn’t both still become tired?”
“Of course.”
“So what changes?”
He smiled. “Not necessarily the exhaustion. The meaning of the exhaustion.”
I understood immediately. Meaning did not remove the cost. It changed the relationship to the cost. I thought about parents caring for a sick child. The sleepless nights are real. The exhaustion is real. Love doesn’t magically eliminate any of that. Yet most parents wouldn’t experience those sacrifices the same way they would meaningless deprivation.
“They know what the tiredness is for,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “A burden can remain heavy and still become worth carrying.”
He later spoke about Frankl’s experiences during the Holocaust and the ideas that eventually emerged in Man’s Search for Meaning. But he was careful. “People sometimes turn Frankl into a slogan.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They hear his story and conclude that meaning allows people to overcome anything.”
I nodded.
“But that isn’t a careful conclusion. Extreme suffering can overwhelm people. Trauma is real. Human resilience varies.”
“So what’s the more accurate lesson?”
He thought for a moment and then said, “Meaning can give a person something to orient toward even when suffering cannot immediately be removed.” Something to live for. I found that formulation both humbler and more profound. It didn’t romanticize suffering. It simply refused to assume suffering had the final word.
I asked another question, “Did Frankl think meaning had to come from some grand achievement?”
“No,” He said, smiling. “And that may be one of the most liberating parts of his thought.”
I leaned forward slightly. “How so?”
“Because meaning can be found in many places.” He began counting examples. “It may emerge through work that contributes something worthwhile. Through creativity. Through service.”
I nodded.
He continued, “Meaning can also emerge through experience. Love. Friendship. Beauty. Nature. Genuine encounters with other people.” Then he paused for a while and added, “And sometimes, when suffering truly cannot be removed, meaning may emerge through the way a person chooses to meet that suffering.”
I frowned slightly. “That sounds dangerous.”
“In what way?”
“It could sound as though suffering itself is good.”
He nodded immediately. “That’s why we have to be careful.”
I appreciated the answer. There was no romanticizing pain. “If suffering can be prevented, treated, corrected, reduced, or resisted,” he continued, “then responsibility may require exactly that. There is no virtue in preserving avoidable suffering simply because it might be meaningful.”
That felt balanced. “Then attitude becomes important when the situation genuinely cannot be changed.”
“Precisely.”
I thought about losses people carry. A loved one who cannot be returned. A diagnosis that cannot be erased. A limitation that must be lived with. An irreversible chapter of life. “What then?” I asked.
He looked at me quietly. “Then the question becomes: How will I meet what I cannot remove?”
I found myself thinking about several people I knew. One had lost much of the independence they once enjoyed because of illness. Another had suffered a loss that permanently altered the shape of their life. Neither person seemed happy about what had happened. Nor should they have been. Yet both possessed a dignity that did not depend on pretending the suffering was good. Perhaps meaning, in those moments, was not found in the circumstance itself. Perhaps it was found in the way they carried it. “Meaning is larger than usefulness,” I said.
“Much larger.”
That distinction felt especially important. We live in a culture that often measures worth through productivity. What have you built? What have you produced? How much have you accomplished? Those questions matter. But if they become the only questions, what happens when productivity becomes impossible? What happens during illness? Disability? Old age? Dependence? Would meaningfulness disappear simply because output decreased? Frankl’s vision suggested otherwise. A person can create something meaningful. A person can love meaningfully. A person can receive beauty meaningfully. A person can endure suffering meaningfully. The possibilities were larger than productivity alone. I found that reassuring. It meant meaning was not postponed until some future day when I finally accomplished something impressive. It might be present in an ordinary afternoon. A sincere conversation. A responsibility handled well. A moment of honesty. A difficult choice made faithfully. A beautiful sunset actually noticed rather than rushed past.
He seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts. “Why do you think people postpone meaning?” He asked.
I smiled. “Because we associate it with something big.”
“Go on.”
“One day I’ll discover my purpose. One day my work will matter. One day I’ll do something important.”
He nodded. “And what happens to today?”
I laughed. “It becomes something to get through.”
That answer felt a little too familiar. For years I had treated the present as preparation for some future significance. Perhaps meaning was always waiting somewhere beyond the next milestone. Frankl’s perspective challenged that assumption. Instead of asking only, What do I want from life?, it invited another question: What is life asking of me right now?
When I asked how that worked in practice, he offered examples: “If someone needs to be heard, meaning may lie in listening well.”
I nodded.
“If a piece of work requires integrity, meaning may lie in doing it honestly.”
“Yes.”
“If you’re witnessing something beautiful, meaning may lie in being present enough to receive it.”
I smiled and asked, “And if I’m facing something I cannot change?”
“Meaning may lie in the kind of person you choose to remain while carrying it.”
The idea had become surprisingly concrete. Meaning was no longer a distant mission statement. It was this person. This responsibility. This situation. This response.
Eventually I asked him something else: “If meaning matters so much, why do we choose comfort instead?”
He smiled and said, “Because comfort usually asks less of us.”
The answer was immediately understandable. Distraction is often easier than reflection. Entertainment is often easier than contribution. Scrolling is often easier than learning. Avoiding a difficult conversation is often easier than having one. Comfort is immediate. Meaning usually asks for participation.
“But comfort isn’t the enemy,” he added.
“No?”
“Of course not. A meaningful life can include rest, pleasure, laughter, friendship, leisure, and joy,” he said. “The problem arises when ease becomes the standard by which everything is judged.”
That felt true. Many meaningful parts of life are not easy. Parenting can be exhausting. Learning can be frustrating. Keeping promises can be inconvenient. Creating something worthwhile can require years of effort. Yet afterward these experiences often leave behind a kind of fullness that passive comfort rarely provides.
“Not easier,” I said. “But fuller.”
He nodded.
I remembered a man I once knew who changed careers. The new work paid less, involved more uncertainty, and demanded more effort. When I asked why he seemed happier, he replied with a sentence I never forgot: “For the first time, I feel useful.”
I shared that story.
He smiled and said, “That may have been one source of meaning for him.”
“Not the only one?”
“No. People are not machines whose worth depends on output.”
Again, the idea widened. A human life could matter without becoming impressive. A person could matter during seasons of giving and seasons of receiving. Presence mattered. Love mattered. Gratitude mattered. Dignity mattered. The way joy was received mattered. The way suffering was carried mattered.
As I reflected on my own life, I noticed something. Some days filled with entertainment left almost no lasting impression. They were enjoyable enough, but strangely thin. Other days contained very little excitement, yet remained memorable because of a meaningful conversation, a period of concentrated learning, an act of service, a moment of beauty, or a responsibility taken seriously. Those days were not always happier. But they felt more inhabited. I had participated in them rather than merely consumed them.
As our conversation drew to a close, I returned to my original question. “So why do people who seem to have everything still feel empty?”
He thought for a while before answering. “Sometimes because what they have answers questions the human heart was never ultimately asking.”
I waited.
“Money answers, ‘What can I afford?’ Comfort answers, ‘How can I reduce inconvenience?’ Status answers, ‘How am I regarded?’ Pleasure answers, ‘What feels good right now?'” Then he added quietly: “But none of them necessarily answers, ‘What is worth giving myself to?'”
That seemed to bring the entire conversation together. The problem was never pleasure. Or comfort. Or success. Or wealth. The problem was expecting them to carry a weight they were never designed to carry.
Later, I reflected on our conversation. When restlessness appears, perhaps the first question should not always be: How can I feel better? Sometimes another question deserves to stand beside it: What am I living for right now? What matters in this moment? What is being asked of me here? Is there something worth loving, serving, creating, receiving, or enduring that I have stopped noticing?
Meaning does not eliminate pain. It does not guarantee happiness. It does not replace treatment when treatment is needed. But it can provide direction where comfort alone cannot. Perhaps human beings need more than a pleasant life. We need a life that points somewhere. Something worth loving. Something worth serving. Something worth creating. Something worth receiving with gratitude. And when suffering truly cannot be removed, some way of meeting it that allows us to remain human rather than be defined entirely by what has happened.
Comfort can make life easier. Meaning helps us understand what makes the living worthwhile.
