 As a lot of you know, I haven't uploaded in a while and that's really unlike me. I usually upload daily if not multiple times a week, but recently I hit a massive depressive funk. I'm constantly working on projects and creating because I'm extremely motivated and passionate about mental health. This is much different than how I spent the first 27 years of my life. During those years, I was extremely depressed and just going through the motions of living each day. I had no meaning and no purpose. After getting sober almost 8 years ago, I found purpose and meaning through my experience. I have big dreams when it comes to the impact I want to make on the world. My three main missions are to increase awareness about mental health, decrease the stigma and most of all, give people hope. Waking up each morning with that as my mission is my fuel. About a month ago, my depression hit me hard and I couldn't find this motivation. I stopped creating and started sleeping more. Even though I kept telling myself this would pass, it wasn't. I tried doing everything I could think of to get out of this funk from meditating and journaling to going on walks and talking to my therapist more. I've been reading a lot lately and about 4 out of the last 5 books I've read have all discussed the same things. They all discussed how one of the major symptoms of depression is feeling like we don't have meaning and purpose. Then I started getting out of my head and thinking about how many other people around the world are struggling with this symptom that keeps us down. When it comes to my mental health, my personal strategy is to try to treat my individual symptoms rather than a cookie cutter method for an overall illness. So I decided to hyper focus on this lack of meaning and purpose that so many of us struggle with. There are quite a few common symptoms of depression that most people can relate to from the negative self-talk to the lack of energy and wanting to isolate. I believe that one of the most relatable symptoms that affects all the others is a lack of meaning and purpose. Humans thrive from having a sense of meaning and when we don't have it, what's getting us out of bed in the morning? The next question is, why don't we possess a natural ability to know what our meaning is? Well, a lot of it starts in school. For most of us, school is where we spend a majority of the first 18 years of our lives. But what's it do to really help us figure out how to find our meaning? Rather than a place that helps foster creativity and individuality, school performance is heavily weighted on your ability to memorize knowledge rather than developing your own wisdom. To better understand how schools aren't created to help us find our life's purpose, we need to look at the history of the school system. The current education system is about 200 years old. Before that, school was a privilege for the elite. As the industrial revolution began to kick off and capitalism became the primary ideology of western civilization, companies started to see the importance of training people who could follow orders and were responsible. By implementing social conditioning, factories could ensure their ability to thrive and increase profits. Back then, there wasn't much opportunity for individuals to create a life for themselves. So creativity and helping young people find their passion wasn't a priority. Today, in the 21st century, while some people still work in a factory setting, we all have the opportunity to do something more. Unfortunately, we're taught in school that passing standardized tests and memorizing facts is the pinnacle of success. As we're told that success means good grades and a high paying job, we're never really taught to develop a sense of meaning. We're told that success means happiness, but the reality is that even successful people struggle with depression, and we need to start asking ourselves, why? Depression is a major issue that millions of people around the world struggle with. According to the National Institute of Health, 17.3 million adults in the United States have had at least one major depressive episode, which is roughly 7.1% of the adult population. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, also known as SAMHSA, a government agency that tracks and provides mental health resources, did a survey in 2017 to see what type of treatment people were getting. According to this data, 15% of people see a health professional only, 6% of people take medication without seeing a health professional, and 44% of people see a health professional and take medication. It's also important to note that when SAMHSA says, quote unquote, health professional, they aren't clear that this is a mental health professional. While a doctor is someone you can talk to about mental health problems and go to in order to receive prescriptions for many types of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications, they aren't specialists in the area like therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. For example, my primary care doctor prescribes my Prozac, and before that she had me on Lexapro. I've never seen a psychiatrist, but I know my mental health problems can't all be solved with appeal, so I have a therapist too. Finally, the statistic that stands out to me the most is that 35% of depressed people receive no treatment at all. That means that each year there are over 6 million people feeling lost and hopeless who aren't getting any help. This can be for a variety of reasons, like a lack of adequate mental health care, or even with health care, it can be expensive for regular sessions with a mental health professional. There are also those who are afraid to get help, or they are so hopeless that they don't think treatment can help them specifically. So for the 17.1 million people who are depressed and struggling to find meaning in life, what can we do? When it comes to finding meaning, pursuing a career that you're calling is a great help, but there are millions of people struggling with depression who aren't working. As I record this, we're in the middle of a pandemic, and over 20 million people lost their jobs in April of 2020 alone. An article from Forbes says, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS, released unemployment data on Friday showing that the U.S. economy lost over 20 million jobs in April with the unemployment rate spiking to 14.7%. The worst since the Great Depression. The report reinforces that many have already seen up close, which is the continuing economic carnage on the American economy caused by the coronavirus. Here's the scary part. As shocking as the data is, reality is much worse because of the quirks in the BLS methodology. If 14.7% unemployment is a portrait of devastation as the New York Times has referred to it, then the real figure, which is closer to 20%, is a glimpse of economic cataclysm. Our jobs are so closely tied with our identity that these unemployment rates are stripping what little purpose and meaning some people have, and this is going to result in even higher depression rates. And what about students? For young people 12 to 17 years old, their depression rates are even higher than in adults affecting 13.3% of the adolescent population. Each year, over 3 million young people struggle with depression and a lack of meaning. When looking at those who are unemployed or those who are still in school, we think that once they get to work, they'll be able to fulfill their need for meaning and purpose, but studies show that this isn't necessarily the case. I recently finished rereading by far my favorite book about depression, and it's from the best-selling author Johann Hari called Lost Connections. In this book, he argues that depression is more than the story we've been told about simply having a chemical imbalance in our brain. While yes, some of depression is due to insufficient neurotransmitters like serotonin, many of us are depressed because of various life circumstances, or what he calls a lack of connections. One of the disconnections he discusses is disconnection from meaningful work, and he pulls from a famous Gallup survey. Here's a quote from Lost Connections. Between 2011 and 2012, the polling company Gallup conducted the most detailed study ever carried out of how people across the world feel about their work. They studied millions of workers across 142 countries. They found that 13% of us say we are engaged in our jobs, which means they are enthusiastic about and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner. Against them, 63% say they are not engaged, which is defined as sleepwalking through their work day, putting time, but not energy or passion into their work. And a further 24% are actively disengaged. They, Gallup explained, aren't just unhappy at work, they're busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. Actively disengaged employees are more or less out to damage their company. This means that based on this study, even after people graduate or after people who are unemployed find work, 87% of them will still lack meaningful work. So what do we need to have meaningful work? It comes down to three main things. We need to know that what we're doing has some sort of purpose or meaning. Number two, we need to have our work acknowledged and receive feedback. Number three, we need some sort of control over the work we're doing. First, we're going to take a look at having purpose and meaning in our work. I remember a few months ago, my coworker was working extremely hard on a project for a new client. For about a week straight, she spent hours each and every day trying to make this project something the client was impressed with. By the time she was done, the client absolutely loved it. Not only that, but our bosses loved it as well and complimented her on the work she did. I was super happy for her as well. Unfortunately, within days, the nation went on lockdown and a lot of our clients dialed back on their business and one was this client in particular. So after all that work, they told my coworker they no longer needed that project that she worked on. She vented her frustration to me and I started looking at it as rationally as possible. I reminded her that she's a salary employee, so she was paid for her work. This is unlike someone who's paid based on commission, who may have lost money after a client canceled the project. So not only was she compensated for the time that she spent on it, but she also got a lot of praise from the client, her colleagues and her bosses. So why was she upset? I actually found the answer in a study that was done by MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely. Dan Ariely is one of my favorite authors and his whole field of study is around human irrationality. He's done many groundbreaking studies that help us become more self-aware of our irrational thoughts and behaviors. And he actually found an answer as to why my coworker was upset after her project was canceled. In his study, Man's Search for Meaning, A Case for Lagos, Ariely and fellow researchers stated the following in their abstract. We investigated how perceived meaning influences labor supply. In a laboratory setting, we manipulate the perceived meaning of simple repetitive tasks and find a strong influence on subjects' labor supply. Despite the fact the wage and the task are identical across the conditions in each experiment, subjects in a less meaningful condition exhibit reservation wages that are consistently much higher than the subjects in the more meaningful condition. The result replicates across different types of tasks. Moreover, in the more meaningful condition, subjects' productivity influences labor supply more strongly. So what does this mean? They went to Harvard University and recruited students to participate in this study and divided them into two groups. Both of the groups would receive payment for every lego-bionicle they built, which consisted of 40 separate pieces. On average, it takes about 10 minutes to build each bionicle. Once the participants finished the first one, they were given a choice to continue making bionicles or to stop. For the first bionicle, they received $2. And for each additional bionicle, they received $0.11 less. So the first bionicle would be a $2 payment, the second would be a $1.89 payment, the third would be a $1.78 payment, and so on. Group 1 was called the meaningful group. They told this group that when they were done with the study, the experimenter would have to take all of the lego-bionicles apart so the next person could assemble them. Whenever the participant would finish a bionicle, if they chose to keep making bionicles and earning more money, the experimenter would place the bionicle in a box and place that box under the desk. Group 2 was called the sisyphus group, named after the Greek myth. This was condemned to push a boulder up a mountain that would roll back down whenever he reached the top for all eternity. In this group, the participants were given the same instructions. They were to build a lego-bionicle and would receive $2 for each one they completed. And each one after would be $0.11 less. They were also told that these bionicles would have to be disassembled before the next participant came in. There was one key difference. Instead of taking the bionicle and placing it in a box under the desk, as soon as the participant was done, the experimenter would start taking it apart right in front of their face. Rationally, you'd think there wouldn't be much of a difference between the two groups. They were participating in a psychology study that was giving them free money to build legos. Well, as you could probably guess, that's not what happened. Here's what they said about the results. Despite the fact that the physical task requirements and the wage schedule were identical in the two conditions, the subjects in the meaningful condition built significantly more bionicles than those in the sisyphus condition. In the meaningful condition, subjects built an average of 10.6 bionicles and received an average of $14.40, while those in the sisyphus condition built an average of 7.2 bionicles and earned an average of $11.52. So why does this happen? Here's what Ariely had to say about it. Occupations that are traditionally regarded as meaningful, like medicine, art, science, are invariably associated with large and noble goals. Individuals presumably derive satisfaction from a feeling that their work promotes these goals, which in turn leads to lower reservation wages. In this light, the standard models of labor supply are certainly consistent with the results of our two experiments. If perceived meaning is an amenity, disutility of effort may depend on the perceived meaning of the task, and it may do so non-additively, changing the elasticity as well as the level of labor supply. However, we believe that the focus of specific amenities, revelant only to some professions, can limit our understanding of meaning and labor. In our view, meaning, at least in part, derives from the connection between work and some purpose. However insignificant or irrelevant that purpose may be to the worker's personal goals. When that connection is severed, when there is no purpose, work becomes absurd, alienating, or even demeaning. Aside from knowing that our work has some sort of purpose, we also need acknowledgement and feedback. In theory, it's great to live a life knowing you're doing your best and not need people to tell you how good you're doing. Unfortunately, that's not how our brains work. We need acknowledgement and feedback because it's how we learn, grow, and evolve. When you look at the great behavioral psychologists like B.F. Skinner and their experiments on what motivates us, it's all about feedback. Skinner basically broke down psychological conditioning into three simple steps. Trigger, behavior, and reward. You can break this down into our most basic survival needs like eating. You get hungry, trigger, you eat, behavior, you're satisfied, reward. This lays down a neuro pathway so the next time you're hungry, you remember what to do and where to go. Now, think about a child being conditioned to do well in school. She gets a good grade, the parents tell her that they're proud of her, and it feels good, so she wants to do it again. It's the same thing with teaching children good manners. When your son holds the door open for someone, you tell them that he did something really nice, and he feels good, so he wants to do that nice gesture again. This is why attachment styles and childhood development are so important. When a child is unaware of what type of feedback they're going to get from a parent, it can cause lifelong psychological issues that can hinder the child's relationships as they get older. A great example is children of alcoholic or addicted parents. This child doesn't know if the good grade is going to be acknowledged, ignored, or maybe due to the parent's intoxication. They yell at the child for bothering them. Receiving feedback also lets us know if we need to improve. My girlfriend is currently pursuing her social work degree, and in this recent semester, she had a teacher who didn't grade anything until the end of the semester. Throughout the semester, my girlfriend would tell me how frustrating it was. She even sent the teacher an email asking for feedback. When I asked my girlfriend why she wanted this grade, because maybe no news is good news, she told me that when she receives grades at the beginning of the semester, she's able to see how the teacher grades and can adjust future assignments accordingly. Without that feedback, you're flying blind. Although my beautiful girlfriend Tristan passed this class and her others with straight A's, she had some anxiety because she could have received a much lower grade, but was never given the opportunity to correct herself along the way. It's like if your GPS was broken and you didn't know, you can go miles in the wrong direction and not know until you end up in the wrong city. We need this at work as well. Some of us have bosses that never acknowledge us. We don't know if we're doing good or bad, so we don't know if our job is secure or not. It'd be great to just have a sense of confidence that you've been doing your job to the best of your ability, but during unexpected times like we've seen in 2020, without receiving feedback, our anxiety goes through the roof due to uncertainty. Finally, we need some sort of control over what we're doing if we want to have meaning and purpose. Many of us work mind-numbing, tedious jobs. We go into work each day to do the same arbitrary tasks that seem to have no meaning. Humans have a need for control and individual agency, but for some of us, the most we get to do is put up some pictures on our desk if we're fortunate enough to have a desk. One of the most famous studies that shows the importance of control and individual agency took place at the nursing home. Researchers wanted to see how control or even perceived control affected health and happiness. So in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin went to a nursing home and separated the old folks into two groups. In group one, the residents could arrange their furniture as they wanted, go where they wanted, and spend time with who they wanted. And they were also able to choose their own activities. They were each even given a small plant to take care of. In group two, the residents were told that the staff was there to take care of them and help them. For example, these residents were also given a plant, but the staff would tell them when to water it. When it came to activities, the staff could choose what the residents did. And each of their days was orchestrated by the staff. So they had virtually no control over what happened from day to day. After 18 months, Langer and Rodin found that the group that was given more control and individual agency reported to be much happier in all life categories. What's more shocking is that their health was far better than those who had no control. In the group with no control, there was a much higher mortality rate. Now think about that for a second. When you have little to no control of your life, it increases health risks. Other studies have shown that people with jobs that offer little individual agency have employees with higher stress rates. You would think that more responsibility would mean more stress and mental health issues, but we actually thrive when we have control over different aspects of our lives. So now that we know that in order to have meaning and purpose in our lives to help us overcome our depression, we also know that it's important that we are doing work that has some sort of meaning. We also need to receive feedback and acknowledgement for what we're doing to increase our security. And finally, we need some sort of control and creativity with the work that we're doing. So how do we do that? There are currently millions of people in the United States alone who are unemployed and we also have millions who are young and haven't joined the workforce yet. While many people are fortunate enough to have a job, as you've learned thus far, it doesn't provide a guaranteed safeguard from depression. So first, let's discuss what solutions young people have. For most people, you'll be spending at least 18 years living at home and going to school where you're taught what they want you to learn. This is why it's important to develop a sense of self and use some free time to discover your likes, dislikes, and passions. What do you care about? What do you enjoy doing? What do you think you'd enjoy doing? Find hobbies and activities that spark your interest. Maybe it's playing music, doing art, creating videos, or joining a school sports team. Some young people find meaning and purpose by doing volunteer work and supporting causes that they truly care about. It's also important to really think long and hard when you're heading off to college. While college isn't for everyone, it's become a part of our culture. For most stable jobs, you need a degree. And unfortunately, it can be extremely expensive. I'm currently in my 30s and myself as well as many others have massive amounts of debt for degrees we either don't use or didn't finish because we simply went to college because that's what you're supposed to do. Young people should think long and hard about what they want to major in and why. Does this major give you meaning and purpose? What are your values? In a future video, we're going to discuss how some people place money as their highest value, and this can be a recipe for getting in a career that leaves you feeling unfulfilled. Before picking a major, do research. How do other people like this major? Do you know anyone in this field? Do they see it as a job, a career, or a calling? Finally, don't be afraid to take some time off to figure stuff out after high school. There's a lot of pressure to go straight to college after high school, but some of the most successful people take a year off to do some soul searching and really figure out what they want to do. Next, we need to discuss those who are unemployed. With millions of people unemployed, depression rates are skyrocketing and people feel as though they have no meaning or purpose. So what should they do? Something many of us need to address is how closely we tie our job in with our identity. Yes, we need to work for a sense of security so we can provide for ourselves and our family, but we sometimes take it too far. When our self-worth is wrapped up in our job, we have very little control over how we feel about ourselves and our sense of meaning. Throughout this pandemic, many people are more depressed than they've ever been because without their job, they don't know who they are or what their purpose is. We can start by taking a look at our core values and see where else we can find purpose. Our purpose might be to be a great parent or a great friend. What if we took some time to make our relationships our top priority during this time away from work? In 12-step programs, one of the core ingredients to long lasting sobriety is being of service to others. Not only do people stay sober, but they live incredibly happy lives because they found their purpose in helping others. And this is something that anyone can do whether you're in recovery or not. When we make one of our core values helping others, we can find meaning and purpose with or without a job. Some of us find that losing our job was the best thing to ever to happen to us. Not only does it give us time to audit our lives and improve our relationships, but it can open us up to new opportunities. A couple years ago, I made a video about how losing my job was the best thing to ever happen to me. I was working somewhere I hated and losing that job sent me down a path of finding my true calling. Then there are those who don't want to work or need to work. There are millions of stay-at-home mothers and fathers out there who may sometimes fall into depressive states because they lose a sense of meaning. Again, we turn to being of service as a way to find that meaning and purpose. Aside from being parents, spouses, and friends, we can help others too. There are opportunities to get involved with our local communities where we can volunteer and help others, which gives us a deep sense of meaning. Finally, we need to address those who are fortunate enough to have a job. When you're working and absolutely miserable, it's easy to beat ourselves up because we feel that we should be grateful. But as you've learned from the LEGO study and nursing home control study, it can be natural to be depressed and feel a lack of meaning while also having a job. So what do we do? For three years, I worked at a dual diagnosis drug and alcohol rehab, and it was easy to find meaning and purpose while doing work there. Each day, I was working with people and trying to help them with their addiction and mental health issues. Aside from that, I get feedback and people would thank me for helping them. It was some of the happiest years of my life. Today, I have a much different job, and I absolutely love my job. I have amazing bosses and coworkers, and it pays me enough to feel secure about providing for my son and paying my bills. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide me with as much meaning and purpose as I had working at the rehab. When I'm depressed, work can be difficult as I have thoughts creeping in saying, what are you doing with your life? Does this work even matter? So something we need to do is find meaning and purpose in what we're doing. We need to get creative and look at the bigger picture. At my current job, I do digital work for a variety of different clients, and they offer great services. Some of them are healthcare providers, and others are doing work to help and inspire the world. Now, when my depression is getting to me, I remind myself that helping these clients is helping others. If I can help drive people to these great services, I'm helping people. When I do a good job for these clients, I'm helping them keep their doors open and to pay their employees. All of us can do this. Maybe you're a retail worker and you're helping someone find a gift that's gonna make their spouse's day. You might work in the food and beverage industry, and maybe you're giving a family a nice night out by providing them with great service. Or you're a fellow YouTube content creator, and the content you just made made somebody smile or just take their mind off of things for a while. Although we can work towards finding meaning and purpose at our jobs, some of us have awful jobs that we absolutely hate. We might be working at a place that we don't agree with on a moral or ethical level, and some of us just have terrible bosses. In these instances, we need to remember that, yes, most of us need to work to have a source of income, but we also need to remember the nursing home study and how much our mental and physical health depends on our individual agency. Life is filled with choices, and we're making a choice about whether or not we stay at a soul-crushing job. We can either stay there and be miserable forever, or we can put effort into finding a new job or career. This doesn't mean that we should storm into our boss's office and quit, but if we realize that this job isn't going to improve, it might be a good idea to use time before work or after work to start researching our potential options. Regardless of what we choose to do, to stay at the job or work towards leaving it, we must remember that we're in control and we are making that choice. If we're going to overcome our depression, we all have to start looking at the bigger picture. Yes, some of us have chemical imbalances and need medications to boost various neurotransmitters, but we cannot fall victim to the idea that depression is only a chemical issue. The majority of depressive symptoms are based on life circumstances, and one of the primary ones is when we feel like we don't have meaning and purpose. Years of psychological studies have shown how we need to pursue things that give us meaning and we need jobs that provide us with feedback and acknowledgement. We now know that when we have little to no control over what we're doing with our lives, we become depressed, and as we learn from the nursing home study, it can even take some years off of our lives. So, whether you're a student, you're unemployed, a stay-at-home mom or dad, or someone who is employed, find your sense of meaning and purpose every single day. Wake up and ask yourself, what can you contribute to this world and who can you help? Not only will you make this world a little bit better of a place to live in, but you'll also be helping your own depression in the process. What's up, everybody? I just want to send out a big thank you if you made it all the way to the end of this video. This is the first time I've done this format and I had a lot of fun doing it, even though it took me a ton of time to make, so I really, really appreciate you watching it and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to share it, and if you're not yet, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul, but I'm gonna try to get back to a weekly upload schedule for all of you in this kind of video essay format, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell, and a huge thank you to everybody out there who supports the channel. I'll see you next time.