PURPOSE

"The e-book call "PURPOSE" is written by Shwin J Brad & Aesha Shah. Explore the difference between a happy life and a meaningful one. Learn how helping others can help you finding meaning in life. Discover the health benefits of having a purpose. Jeremy Adam Smith explores how the science of purpose could help explain white supremacy. Certain emotions and behaviors that promote health and well-being can also foster a sense of purposespecifically, awe, gratitude, and altruism. Several studies conducted by the Greater Good Science Center's Dacher Keltner have shown that the experience of awe makes us feel connected to something larger than ourselvesand so can provide the emotional foundation for a sense of purpose. Of course, awe all by itself won't give you a purpose in life. It's not enough to just feel like you're a small part of something big; you also need to feel driven to make a positive impact on the world. That's where gratitude and generosity come into play. "It may seem counterintuitive to foster purpose by cultivating a grateful mindset, but it works," writes psychologist Kendall Bronk, a leading expert on purpose. As research by William Damon, Robert Emmons, and others has found, children and adults who are able to count their blessings are much more likely to try to "contribute to the world beyond themselves." This is probably because, if we can see how others make our world a better place, we'll be more motivated to give something back. Here we arrive at altruism. There's little question, at this point, that helping others is associated with a meaningful, purposeful life. In one study, for example, Daryl Van Tongeren and colleagues found that people who engage in more altruistic behaviors, like volunteering or donating money, tend to have a greater sense of purpose in their lives. Interestingly, gratitude and altruism seem to work together to generate meaning and purpose. In a second experiment, the researchers randomly assigned some participants to write letters of gratitudeand those people later reported a stronger sense of purpose. More recent work by Christina Karns and colleagues found that altruism and gratitude are neurologically linked, activating the same reward circuits in the brain. It is inspiring, uplifting and Motivative."

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