Why People Feel Empty, Lonely, and Like Nothing They Do Matters - Jennifer Breheny Wallace
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does it mean to feel like we matter?
0:00–0:34
2
How does feeling worthless contribute to mental health issues?
0:34–0:56
3
What is the 'mattering crisis' and how has it evolved?
0:56–2:01
4
How does achievement culture affect our sense of worth?
2:01–2:42
5
What are the four ingredients that signal we matter?
2:42–4:29
6
How can we balance our needs with the needs of others?
4:29–6:14
7
What role does social media play in our feelings of disconnection?
6:14–8:34
8
How can we implement the concept of mattering in our daily lives?
8:34–25:49
Speakers
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