Emily Esfahani Smith

you know, different people will feel, like resonate with different pillars, you know, to more or less of a degree.

And you don't have to have all four of the pillars, you know, necessarily in your life in order to feel like your life is meaningful.

But for some people, you know, belonging is really important, those connections we have to others.

For others, it's gonna be, you know, transcendence, this connectedness to, you know, the beauty around us, to nature, to the spiritual world.

But I think, you know, if I had to single out one,

more than any for right now, given this moment in time that we're in, I would focus on belonging because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, Whitney, there is this kind of growing divisiveness.

And, you know, this is obviously kind of impairing and getting in the way of us having the kind of relationships that we want to have with people.

You know, there's kind of that cliche now about, you know, the Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving table and,

you know, family members who have become estranged from one another as a result of political beliefs.

And I think if we kind of step back and think about belonging and connectedness in kind of a broader way than our allegiance to a political party or to a particular group, it could maybe help us, you know, rekindle those connections.

So in my book, The Power of Meaning, I talk about belonging as, you know,

this ability to kind of value the other person for who they are intrinsically and to feel valued in turn for who you are intrinsically.

So, you know, we're not valued.

We don't belong, you know, when we're just, you know, part of a political tribe or even, you know, if you think in more problematic cases, part of a gang or a cult, we have true belonging when we're valued for who we are

intrinsically, kind of deep down, being recognized as a human being.

I think political parties and groupishness, sports team affiliations, another example, can offer this kind of cheap sense of belonging, but true belonging springs from this place of love, I would say, like smaller case love in some cases, where you actually just kind of connect with another person.

It could be

the person at the grocery store or your child at home.

And so kind of stripping away some of these myths of belonging that it has to come from being affiliated with a group or for believing a certain thing, I think can help us in this new year

forge better connections.