Flow and Meaning in Life: Some Empirically Informed Practical Lessons

On Susan Wolf's well-known account of meaning in life, activities can add meaning to our lives only if we are actively engaged in those activities. My aim in this thesis is to uncover empirically informed, practical lessons about meaning, given Wolf's requirement of active engagement. After examining Wolf's account and defending that requirement, I look at the psychological research on "flow," which is the conceptual equivalent of active engagement in psychology. I then draw three important practical lessons about meaning in light of this research—one about activities that take us outside of our comfort zones, another about stress, and a third about trusting intuition.