Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci
Why People Feel Empty, Lonely, and Like Nothing They Do Matters - Jennifer Breheny Wallace
21 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What does it mean to feel like we matter?
When we feel like we matter, we show up to the world in positive ways. We connect, we engage, we contribute. When we are chronically made to feel like we don't matter, we can withdraw, become anxious, depressed, turn to substances to try to alleviate the pain. A study of suicidal men and the two words they must often use to describe their suffering is useless and worthless.
Those are words that describe feeling like you do not matter. We need to figure out how we are going to protect what it means to be human, and that is to matter.
Chapter 2: How does feeling worthless contribute to mental health issues?
We evolve to meet this need.
Welcome to Open Book. Joining us today is Jennifer Wallace. She's an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and what a great book. I read it over the winter break, by the way, and it's called Mattering, The Secret of a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose.
Chapter 3: What is the 'mattering crisis' and how has it evolved?
Well, first of all, do you go by Jenny or Jennifer?
Jenny.
Jenny's perfect. All right. Okay, good. So Jenny... I've read a lot of self-improvement books. I'm a reader. But this really hit me in a different way. You are identifying an operating system that we need for our time. And so I want you to... Tell us about the culture that we're living in right now. And let's talk honestly, the mental health crisis as a result of that culture.
And what is the message inside your book about mattering?
Yeah. So, I mean, mattering just to give everyone a simple definition, I define it the way researchers who study it define it. And that is feeling valued for who you are by your families, your colleagues, your neighborhoods, society as a whole, and then having an opportunity to add value back across those areas of your life.
And what I argue in the book is that we are going through a mattering crisis.
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Chapter 4: How does achievement culture affect our sense of worth?
This has been evolving since the 60s and 70s, and Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone did a wonderful job of tracking this. Mattering, this idea of feeling valued and adding value, used to be baked into our everyday life. We knew our neighbors. We relied on them. After a storm, they'd check in to make sure the electricity was still on.
We had workplace social contracts where if you were loyal to your company, they'd be loyal to you with a pension. We were a more religious society. And I'm not saying we should go back to religion. It wasn't a panacea. But it provided a kind of structure where every week we were welcomed and we would be missed if we weren't there.
Chapter 5: What are the four ingredients that signal we matter?
So these everyday signals that we matter, have gone away. And what's replaced it is this loneliness, this isolation, this crisis.
By the way, I read part of this book, but I also listened to the audible version of the book, which was in your voice. And what resonated to me is that you care a lot about people who feel lonely, burnt out, anxious, disconnected. And you say something in the book, which I want you to share here, that these are symptoms of something deeper. What is it?
What is it that's got everybody so stressed out, Jen?
So when we feel like we matter, we show up to the world in positive ways. We connect, we engage, we contribute. When we are chronically made to feel like we don't matter, We can withdraw, become anxious, depressed, turn to substances to try to alleviate the pain.
I quote in the book, a study of suicidal men and the two words they must often use to describe their suffering is useless and worthless. Those are words that describe feeling like you do not matter. The other thing we can do when we feel like we don't matter is we can act out in terrible ways, forcing people to take notice of us, forcing us. I think about this with political extremes.
I think about it with road rage, online attacks, even very destructive actions like shootings. These, in my mind, are desperate attempts of people to say, oh, I don't matter. I'll show you I matter.
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Chapter 6: How can we balance our needs with the needs of others?
And what I fear, honestly, what keeps me up at night is in this age of AI where the world is changing so rapidly around us, I fear that we are going to see this lack of mattering on a scale we have never seen before. And that keeps me up at night because I know we are right to be talking about universal basic income. I think it may be necessary, but it's not enough.
We need to figure out how we are going to protect what it means to be human, and that is to matter. I mean, we evolved to meet this need.
Because I want you to slice it up for me, okay? Because mattering is, to me, the way you describe it in the book, is very different from just self-esteem, or it's very different from status, and it's very different from job success. Okay, so go ahead, drill into it for me.
Yeah, so it's so interesting, but the sociologist who created the self-esteem scale that everybody uses was actually the same person who conceptualized mattering in the 1980s. What I believe he saw is that self-esteem isn't enough. that we need to know our actions make a difference. We need, as humans, that social proof that we matter. So mattering has these ingredients.
It's actually, what I love about it is that it's so practical. You know, we know the importance, for example, of belonging, but belonging doesn't go far enough. You know, you can belong to a table or the accounting department. a neighborhood, a family, and not feel like you matter to the people there. So what does it mean? What is that experience of feeling like you matter?
I've put it under a framework I call SED, just so I can remember it easily.
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Chapter 7: What role does social media play in our feelings of disconnection?
It stands for Feeling Significant, appreciated, invested in, and depended on. Those are four ingredients that send the signal that you matter. I can break them up really quickly for you. So I interviewed hundreds of people around the world, and I asked every one of them, tell me a time when you felt like you mattered. And it was never the big moments, like you said.
It was never the job promotion or the award at work or the toast at a milestone birthday. We as humans crave to matter in the everyday, in the mundane of life. So it's having a neighbor come over with a pot of soup when we are sick. It is having a colleague check in after a particularly rough week at work. We crave to matter in the everydayness of life.
Feeling appreciated is, in my mind, it's appreciating the doer behind the deed. So not just thanks for this action that you did, but because of you, what it is about you that I appreciate that led to this. Feeling invested in is knowing there are people in this life who are invested in our goals and well-being and that we have people too that we're invested in.
And then depended on is knowing we're relied on. and that people rely on us. It's what gives us that psychological safety that we are not going through this world alone.
So, I mean, It's a simplistic question, and you can give me a more in-depth intellectual answer, but are we wired to help each other?
Yes. Yes, we are wired by evolution to want to be pro-social. I mean, there's been this myth that took hold that we are hyper-selfish as human beings, but the whole reason we evolved is because we mattered. to the people in our group. We felt valued by them and we added value to them. And so we have evolved with this motivation to matter.
And researchers who study it say that after food and shelter, it is this need to matter that drives our behavior for better or for worse.
Let's talk about our achievement culture for a second. Okay. So, you know, and this is across families and schools and workplaces, people are praised for their performance. Is this hurt ourself?
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Chapter 8: How can we implement the concept of mattering in our daily lives?
I feel like when I got done reading your book, I felt like, okay, the war is really, the first war starts with inside of ourselves. At the end of the day, if we think we matter, then we matter. If we don't think we matter, then... No matter what external force comes upon us, we don't matter.
But just talk about this whole culture of the way we are training the kids and we grow up as adults and we think about ourselves in a certain way.
I'm so glad you asked that. So mattering is the story we tell ourselves about our place in the world. So you are absolutely right. Mattering starts from within. My first book, Never Enough, really unpacked achievement culture, why it's reached such a boiling point today.
And what I found in the young people that I interviewed was that the kids who were really struggling the most today in our society feel like their mattering is contingent on how they look, on how they perform, the brand name college they go to. And I've been touring with this book, Never Enough and Mattering Now.
And I've spoken with hundreds of parents who have described feeling caught up in this achievement culture themselves. They've internalized what the Dutch theologian Henry Nouwen describes as the three great lies of our society. I am what I have. I am what I do. I am what people say and think of me. That is how we build a very, very fragile sense of self that can come crumbling down when
Our image takes a hit when we fail, when we have setbacks, which are inevitable in life. And I just want to be clear that I'm not saying don't go for achievement and success. I am a high achiever. I enjoy it. It fills me up. I love it. But my worth is not tied to my achievements.
And what I actually found in studying healthy strivers across the age groups is that they had this deep sense of mattering that allowed them to reach for high goals because they knew that their worth was never in question. So they could reach for really high things. I could put out these two books because if I crashed and burned and they...
you know, weren't well received, I knew I mattered no matter what. So it gave me the, you know, the foundation to reach for high goals.
Thank you for tuning in to Open Book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week. We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show. For me, you know, I think it's the hardest thing. And I have five children, so I always try to tell my kids the fight is on the inside.
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