Many of us experience periods of existential angst. Whether our feelings of insignificance have been triggered by the regular wear and tear of life, or by boredom or depression, they can feel pretty real. What can you do when you feel like you don’t matter? How can you connect to the feeling that you truly matter?
There are three steps to building your confidence and knowing that you matter, and they are spiritual in nature. They don’t require any particular practice, just the acknowledgement of the presence of a power greater than yourself. These are the three steps:
- Recognize that the material world is limited, and the spiritual world is infinite. All feelings of worthlessness and futility are rooted in the temporal material world. In the material world, one can never have enough or be enough. The material world says, “Get more and do more, or you are a loser.” A sense of existential angst complements that sentiment, since no amount of money, fame, physical beauty, or external stimulation will sate the material quest for happiness, and materialism by definition is fleeting and impermanent. And no matter how much you have, it can never satisfy a person at the soul level. Without soul satisfaction — meaning without a connection to an infinite power and the sense of transcendence, meaning, and wholeness that comes from it — a person is inevitably doomed to feel insignificant.
- Understand that you are an actual part of a Higher Power. You are your soul, not your body, and your soul is an actual part of a Higher Power. You have a piece of infinity inside you — without out it you literally cannot live. Your body is simple a vehicle to allow your soul to travel in this physical world. You need a body in order to live out your purpose in life, but your soul is the source of that purpose. That’s why the second step to becoming aware of the fact that you matter when you feel that you don’t is understanding that your body is finite, but your soul is infinite, and is your true compass and driver.
- Accept that the Higher Power makes no mistakes, and that It chose you to be on Earth with a specific mission. Make no mistake: If you are alive, you matter. In addition to being infinite, the Higher Power (and consequently your soul) is perfect. The Higher Power didn’t mess up when creating you — you aren’t some kind of worthless outlier. There are no worthless outliers. Even when we have setback, and things don’t always work our as planned, we each were created with a unique purpose, with our own mission in life. Stuff happens to each of us, and we each have our own challenges, but regardless of the variables of our lives and personalities, every single person on Earth has a mission. Birth is G-d saying, “You matter.”
If you don’t have a personal mission statement yet, begin writing one. When you know your personal mission statement, you can always return to it when you start drifting into existential angst, or wander into other forms of feeling lost. The Meaningful Life Center has published several guides to writing your own personal mission statement, which we have linked below.
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