What Makes Life Memorable and Meaningful?

Habits and responsibilities are key to a productive and stable life, but without new experiences, we can lose our appreciation for this human experience. Olga Danylenko/Shutterstock

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According to researchers at OnePoll, the average American hasn’t found a new song they liked in more than four months; the same goes for new TV shows. As for trying a new restaurant, the average American hasn’t frequented one in five months.

“Yes,” some readers will say, “that’s because music and TV aren’t as good as they used to be, and restaurants are too darn expensive.”

However, as the survey shows, Americans’ reluctance to try something new goes way beyond listening to a new song or booking a table at a new restaurant. Fifty-six percent of all respondents identified themselves as “creatures of habit,” and only 38 percent said they regularly left their comfort zones. Rather surprisingly, nearly 1 in 4 said they had no interest in stepping out of these zones. Seeking novelty, it seems, doesn’t rank highly on millions of Americans’ to-do lists. But it should. Here’s why.

Across the country, rates of cognitive impairment are on the rise. Studies demonstrate that a lack of novelty in one’s life is closely associated with cognitive decline. A 2017 paper, published in Frontiers in Psychology, warned that “long-term exposure to low job complexity, for instance, has detrimental effects on cognitive functioning and regional gray matter (GM) volume.” Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by cognitive impairment and a large loss of gray matter volume. For the uninitiated, gray matter plays a key role in our abilities to process information, govern muscle control, and make decisions.

The older people get, the more likely they are to suffer from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. However, as researchers at the University Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown, engaging in cognitively demanding, novel activities may reduce the risk of dementia.

This brings us to Shige Oishi, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and his theory of a psychologically rich life. Centered around novelty, a psychologically rich life rejects the idea of permanently residing within our comfort zones. It also rejects the notion of hedonism, or the idea that immediate gratification matters more than anything else. In Mr. Oishi’s eyes, pleasure isn’t the highest principle.

Raised in Japan, Mr. Oishi moved to the United States to attend graduate school. This, he told me via email, was a huge decision, one that profoundly shaped his life. It was daunting and scary but ultimately extremely rewarding. After all, he met his wife in the United States.

A psychologically rich life need not break the bank. One can live a vibrant, stimulating existence on a budget. According to a 2019 paper authored by Mr. Oishi and his colleagues, those “who lead a psychologically rich life seek to enrich their lives through novel experiences via travel, literature, film, music, sports, and the arts.”

“Although many experiences (e.g., travel) may require time and material resources,” the authors wrote, “other experiences such as literature and music are widely available for little or no monetary cost (e.g., via libraries).”

A 2021 Pew report found that almost a quarter of American adults (23 percent) hadn’t “read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form.” Last year, analysts at Wordsrated warned that more than 50 percent of the American population hadn’t read a single book in the past year. Studies show that the brain-stimulating effects associated with reading decrease the rate of cognitive decline, particularly among older people.

Reading is just one feature of a psychologically rich life. As Mr. Oishi and his colleagues suggest, “those living a psychologically rich life often have unusual and interesting personal stories to tell others.” A life lacking psychological richness, they said, “is a life of monotonous tedium.” Of course, to combat the monotonous tedium, one could move to a remote part of Nepal and live among a rural population. Then again, one could simply strike up conversations with people one wouldn’t usually speak to. Each individual is different, and what bores one person could excite another.

Interestingly, in a series of studies carried out in 2019, Mr. Oishi and his colleagues asked participants what they desired: a psychologically rich life, defined by novel and perspective-challenging experiences; a happy life, defined by comfort, certainty, and largely devoid of pain; or a meaningful life, defined largely by a sense of purpose. In one study, they asked 3,728 participants from nine countries (including the United States) to pick one of the three options. Most chose a happy life. The second most popular option was a meaningful life. A “substantial minority of participants,” they wrote, chose the psychologically rich option.

However, in another study, Mr. Oishi and his colleagues asked 1,611 American adults what they regretted most in their lives. Close to one-third of participants regretted not living a more psychologically rich life. In other words, many people do, in fact, desire a psychologically rich life—but they fail to realize this fact until later in life. Don’t make the same mistake. Carpe diem.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.