When Harvard professor Arthur Brooks stepped back into the classroom in 2019, he found a different class of students than he anticipated.
“I expected students much like those I’d taught before: ambitious, curious, eager for the future. Instead, I found them just as driven, but far more anxious and adrift, caught in what I came to see as a crisis of meaning,” he told the Catholic Herald. Today, he sees it as a part of a larger problem: “There is a growing unhappiness epidemic on college campuses.”
The students’ struggle with “what gives a life meaning and how to find it,” prompted Brooks to pursue a seven-year study of happiness. He identified three key components, or “macronutrients,” of happiness: enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. But while people today experience “an abundance of enjoyment and satisfaction,” he said there is a lack of that third macronutrient: meaning.
The journey towards finding it is the subject of his latest release, “The Meaning of Your Life.”
In the book, Brooks outlines how technological, cultural and economic changes have “rewired our brains, reducing their ability to perceive depth and purpose.” He then provides several practical and scientifically backed tactics to break free from personal habits and trends that cloud our ability to perceive depth and contemplate the meaning of life. Utilizing philosophy and faith traditions from around the world, Brooks provides the reader a blueprint for discovering “the why of your life.” “The Meaning of Your Life,” reminds the reader of the importance — and necessity — of confronting life’s important questions and pursuing a life of spirituality, love and calling.
Brooks is the bestselling author of “The Happiness Files” and “Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier,” which he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey.
But for a social scientist who’s devoted his life to studying happiness, the topic is personal. “I’ve never been a naturally happy person,” Brooks said. “So, I’ve spent much of my life trying to understand happiness, not just academically, but in a way that I could actually live.”
Brooks’ findings on happiness in today’s culture are sobering. “In my own students — and across millions of data points — I see a world that is deeply unhappy,” he said. “When people are unhappy, many things begin to fray: civic life, social trust, community.”
Unhappiness is also tied to something we use daily. “Technology — especially social media — is essentially a happiness killer. It pulls us into constant distraction and social comparison,” Brooks said. “As I discuss in the book, it draws us away from the ‘right hemisphere’ of the brain — the part associated with meaning, love and mystery — and keeps us confined to a more analytical, left-hemisphere mode.” Only without technology can people discover and intentionally pursue those things that make life rich, he added: “transcendence, calling, deep love and real friendship.”
A parishioner of the Arlington diocese, Brooks said his faith is the most important part of his life, “a true source of transcendence.” And while he does not force his faith on others, Brooks said he is “ultimately trying to help people move beyond themselves as well, to experience self-transcendence through their relationships, their work and even their leisure.”
Less than a month after the publication of “The Meaning of Your Life,” Brooks said he hopes readers will take its message to heart.
“For readers in 2026 who feel a lack of meaning, it’s often because one or more key sources of meaning are missing — close relationships, work that feels like a calling, a faith or philosophical practice, exposure to beauty, or a durable way to handle suffering,” he said. “This book speaks directly to those gaps, offering a way to strengthen each of these areas and, in doing so, rebuild a more meaningful life.”
Donofrio can be reached at [email protected].
Find out more
Go to arthurbrooks.com.
