The Search for Meaning

Happiness

The 10 Commandments of Happiness

Galen Guengerich Ph.D. on July 19, 2013

Everyone wants to be happy, but the word "commandment" has a harsh ring to it, as though bad things will happen if you don't comply. The word actually derives from a Latin term meaning "to recommend" or "to entrust." During twenty years of counseling people in the best of times and the worst, I've found that good things happen when people follow these ten recommendations.

Everyone wants to be happy, but the word "commandment" has a harsh ring to it, as though bad things will happen if you don't comply. The word actually derives from a Latin term meaning "to recommend" or "to entrust." During twenty years of counseling people in the best of times and the worst, I've found that good things happen when people follow these ten recommendations.

Identity

Beam Me Up, Scotty: What Teleportation Says About Identity

Galen Guengerich Ph.D. on June 26, 2013

The Star Trek television series popularized the idea that a person or object could be dematerialized at one location, beamed to a different location, and rematerialized there. Even if the technical issues are resolved, as the physicist Michio Kaku says will happen within a century, the question is whether an individual’s identity would survive the transport.

The Star Trek television series popularized the idea that a person or object could be dematerialized at one location, beamed to a different location, and rematerialized there. Even if the technical issues are resolved, as the physicist Michio Kaku says will happen within a century, the question is whether an individual’s identity would survive the transport.

Happiness

Are You Too Busy To Have a Life?

Galen Guengerich Ph.D. on June 8, 2013

When I ask people in passing how things are going, the most consistent answer I get back is that they’re busy. On the one hand, this is no surprise: everyone has to be doing something every minute of every day. On the other hand, I take this statement somehow to mean that they’re merely busy, as if all the hustle and bustle isn’t adding up. So what are we doing with our t

When I ask people in passing how things are going, the most consistent answer I get back is that they’re busy. On the one hand, this is no surprise: everyone has to be doing something every minute of every day. On the other hand, I take this statement somehow to mean that they’re merely busy, as if all the hustle and bustle isn’t adding up. So what are we doing with our t

Happiness

Memorial Day: Parades, Picnics, and the Meaning of Life

Galen Guengerich Ph.D. on May 26, 2013

A vacation is a time when we empty out all the routine stuff of our everyday lives, in order to make vacant our homes and offices, maybe even our minds. A vacation also requires that we figure out what to put back into our minds and homes and offices when we return. Does everything go back into the same place? Or do things look different now?

A vacation is a time when we empty out all the routine stuff of our everyday lives, in order to make vacant our homes and offices, maybe even our minds. A vacation also requires that we figure out what to put back into our minds and homes and offices when we return. Does everything go back into the same place? Or do things look different now?

Anxiety

What Will You Do if You Win $550 Million Powerball Lottery?

Galen Guengerich Ph.D. on May 16, 2013

The Powerball Lottery jackpot currently stands at $550 million—about $275 million after taxes to a single winner. That’s a lot of money by almost anyone’s standards. Whether you buy a ticket or not, it’s worth asking yourself what you would do if you won.

The Powerball Lottery jackpot currently stands at $550 million—about $275 million after taxes to a single winner. That’s a lot of money by almost anyone’s standards. Whether you buy a ticket or not, it’s worth asking yourself what you would do if you won.

Each one of us—not only human beings, but every leaf, every weed, everything whatsoever—exists as it does only because everything around it exists as it does. Without the center, there is no circumference; without the circumference, there is no center. Each individual and its universe are inseparable.

The commonplace experiences that dominate the lives of many people on earth—hunger, poverty, and violence—are mainly statistics to us. Most of the time, thankfully, they don't affect our way of life. And while that’s a good thing for our physical wellbeing, it’s not necessarily good for our souls.

I confess to feeling deeply ambivalent about Earth Day. On the one hand, having been born to a Mennonite family on a dairy farm in central Delaware, I love the earthiness of Earth Day. On the other hand, Earth Day was founded not because of what is right with the earth but what’s wrong with it.

John Krakauer’s spellbinding book Into the Wild tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a top student athlete who graduates from Emory University, gives his $24,000 in savings to charity, abandons everything else, and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. McCandless roams at will—“Ultimate freedom.” It’s Walden Pond with fewer trees and cooler weather.

On a Tuesday several weeks ago, one hundred and fifteen men gathered in secret to decide who among them would become the most powerful religious leader in the world. Setting aside the question of whether anyone should wield such power, the question before Pope Francis is how he should use it.