Your Life’s Meaning Changes Based On How You Choose To Face Crisis

Japanese researcher discovers that the same devastating event can feel either deeply meaningful or completely worthless — depending entirely on your response

TOKYO — A romantic partner dies suddenly. A person loses their job after decades of service. Someone faces a terminal diagnosis. These moments force the question: “What’s the point of living?”

According to new research, the answer depends entirely on how someone chooses to respond to that question. Masahiro Morioka, a philosophy professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, has developed a new way of thinking about life’s meaning that puts the power squarely in people’s hands rather than in external circumstances.

His “geographic model of meaning in life” reveals that the same tragic event can become either a source of purpose or crushing emptiness based solely on the attitude a person adopts when facing their crisis.

“An important implication of my argument is this: The experienced meaning of a life or a life event can vary significantly corresponding to different attitudes or commitments a person takes toward a life when questioning the worth of living it,” Morioka writes in his study, published in the journal Philosophia.

How Life Crisis Creates Opportunities for Meaning

Morioka’s research changes the traditional script about how meaning works. Instead of viewing tragic events as things that simply happen to people, he argues that life actively invites responses during difficult times.

When someone faces devastating circumstances — severe workplace harassment, drug addiction, or losing a loved one — their life presents what Morioka calls a “solicitation.” Life essentially taps someone on the shoulder and offers different paths forward.

One path might lead toward despair. A person facing addiction might hear an inner voice asking, “Wouldn’t it be better not to live any longer?” That’s life soliciting a response toward giving up.

But that same addiction could solicit completely different responses. The person might feel drawn to seek help from professionals and friends, gradually building hope for recovery. Or they might decide to fight the problem entirely alone, creating what Morioka describes as a confusing maze where life feels fragmented and mysterious.

Each response creates a totally different experience of meaning from the exact same circumstances.

How Your Response to Tragedy Determines Life’s Meaning

The most striking aspect of Morioka’s model is how dramatically meaning can shift based on attitude alone. He uses the metaphor of standing on a mountaintop: turn in one direction and see a beautiful sunrise; turn another way and face storm clouds.

Consider someone dealing with the sudden death of their romantic partner. “If I probe into my life in the here and now with the attitude of trying to endure the devastating situation, that attitude encourages me in the darkest of times, and the possibility of surviving gradually begins to appear before me,” Morioka explains. A sense of resilience and eventual hope emerges.

But if that same grieving person shifts toward giving up, the grief becomes evidence that life has no point. The circumstances haven’t changed, only the person’s approach to them. Yet the experience of meaning transforms completely.

Morioka calls this collection of different possible meanings a person’s “subjective geography.” Like having access to different emotional landscapes, people can potentially move between various experiences of meaning by consciously changing how they engage with their challenges.

Why This Research Challenges Traditional Views on Life Purpose

Most discussions about life’s meaning focus on external factors: achieving certain goals, following moral principles, or contributing to something bigger than oneself. Influential thinkers like Susan Wolf argue that meaningful lives happen “when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness.”

Morioka takes a radically different approach by focusing entirely on the internal experience of meaning rather than external measures of success or contribution.

His work draws on scientific research about how perception works. Just as experiments showed that kittens need to actively move around to develop proper vision, Morioka argues that people need to actively engage with their circumstances to create meaning. Meaning becomes something people do rather than something they find.

The research also builds on the concept of “affordances,” or possibilities that situations offer us for action. A chair offers the possibility of sitting; a door offers the possibility of opening. Similarly, Morioka suggests that life situations offer different possibilities for creating meaning, depending on how someone chooses to respond.

What This Means for Handling Life’s Challenges

While Morioka’s work remains theoretical, it offers a different way of thinking about life’s difficulties. Rather than waiting to discover meaning or viewing it as something that either exists or doesn’t, his model suggests people have significant power to create meaningful experiences through conscious choice.

Someone might achieve external success while feeling empty inside, or struggle with practical problems while experiencing deep purpose. The key lies not in the circumstances themselves but in how actively and deliberately someone engages with whatever life presents.

However, Morioka acknowledges important limitations. His model specifically addresses situations where people are actively questioning their life’s worth in response to challenges. Many people find meaning without going through such questioning periods, and others might receive life’s “invitations” but choose not to engage with them at all.

Still, for a world where many people struggle with feelings of purposelessness, Morioka’s geographic model offers both hope and responsibility. Meaning remains accessible not through finding the right external conditions, but through conscious engagement with whatever challenges life inevitably brings. The power to turn crisis into purpose lies not in changing circumstances, but in changing how someone chooses to meet them.