I read this article hoping that it would provide some meaningful insight into my own situation, but unfortunately, it only raised more questions. What about those of us who don't have families to support? What about those of us who are, in essence, unneeded? What each person needs in his or her life, whether it is provided by work or by something else, is a sense of meaning. Without this, vigor suffers. How this is not commonly known is beyond my comprehension.

Viktor Frankl wrote a whole book about this innate need for meaning, aptly titled "Man's Search for Meaning." In the book, Frankl observes that those who best survived the horrors of concentration camps were precisely those who were able to give some sort of meaning to their suffering, which in many cases came in the form of a family or loved one that waited for them to emerge from captivity.

This article is not very useful, and its lack of insight leaves me feeling surprised that it was written by a psychologist (who ostensibly should know better).