Smarter, Stronger, Kinder

Ever feel like you have lost your purpose? Like what you do today doesn’t matter? Sure, each day has its pleasures, and when you are busy going about your work and play, these deep concerns are forgotten, only to re-emerge as the day winds down and you turn out the lights and face your thoughts alone on your pillow.

Philosophers might call thoughts like these signs of an existential crisis—as in, how do I justify my existence? They can occur to people with depression or other serious mental illnesses, or to almost anyone with or without an illness, in the uncertainties of life.

Ask yourself this at the end of each day

In my opinion, there is a way to address this dilemma. Every night, as you wait for sleep, ask yourself the following, "What did I do today to make myself smarter, stronger, or kinder?" If you can name anything you did in the course of the day to make yourself smarter, stronger, or kinder, then it was not only not a wasted day, but it tells you something essential about your purpose on earth.

Let me explain. To be more informed, or more insightful is to be smarter. To be more robust physically, emotionally, socially, or spiritually is to be stronger. To care more for others, whether they are strangers or intimates, is to be kinder. To develop yourself along any of these lines is to add to your character, and thus to build for your future. As long as you have done something in the course of the day to make yourself smarter, stronger, or kinder, you have proven through your actions that you are living for your future, that your life today had a purpose with respect to that future.

Living with a purpose

Whether you are well prepared for the future, based on what you did today, is another question—you may decide that you want to be the smartest, strongest, or kindest person alive (hard to be all three!). Or you may decide that tomorrow you want to work on kinder, when you spent the day working on stronger, or vice versa. Regardless, the initial question of having a purpose or no purpose—the existential crisis—is resolved if you can point to one thing you did in the course of the day to be smarter, stronger, or kinder. Because whether you have realized it or not, you are living with purpose (and if you’re not, then here’s what you need to do to get one).

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Can I Help You?

Do you have a question you have always wanted to ask a psychiatrist? I have just set up a new email account for reader queries: yahoomentalhealth@gmail.com. I invite you to ask me anything about mental illness, medications, the workings of the mind--really, anything remotely connected to psychiatry and mental health. I will respond by addressing your question or issue in a blog entry, bearing in mind the two points below.

Two important points about email messages that you send:

• I promise on my professional honor to keep any communication confidential—within the limits of the law. That is, if someone is in danger, I must act or at least report on the danger to authorities.
• I cannot provide individual or timely clinical help. If you have a thorny problem I will address it in a general way both to protect your confidentiality and to make it relevant to the greatest number of readers. But it is beyond my power to promise to be able to respond quickly to an urgent situation, so if you have an urgent situation, please contact your doctor or therapist, or go to an emergency room.

Please do send a message, so I can make this blog more responsive to the concerns that brought you to this webpage.