Name Your Mattering Project & Find a Path to a More Meaningful Life (w/ Rebecca Goldstein)
5 Big Ideas, 3 Reflection Questions, 1 Takeaway
We sit down with philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein to explore one of the most quietly urgent questions in human life: Do I matter?
You’ll learn what Rebecca calls the mattering instinct, why every human being carries a longing to justify their existence in their own eyes, and how to identify the mattering project that is already shaping your life — whether you know it or not.
Rebecca is a MacArthur Fellow and National Humanities Medal recipient. Her book The Mattering Instinct is one of the most thought-provoking reads we’ve come across in years.
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🖐 5 BIG IDEAS
1. The mattering instinct is the engine beneath everything else
Freud said the two cornerstones of humanness are love and work. Rebecca amends this: our two deepest needs are connectedness (belonging to people who care about us) and mattering (feeling we are deserving of the attention we must pay ourselves to survive).
These are not the same thing. You can have all the love and connection in the world and still fall into depression if you lack a way to justify your existence in your own eyes. William James — multi-talented, surrounded by a loving family — spent months unable to get out of bed, contemplating suicide. What he lacked was not connection. He lacked a mattering project.
Once he found his niche in psychology and philosophy, he became known for boundless energy. Same person, same relationships, different project.
2. A mattering project is not a goal. It is a reason to live.
Mattering projects are existentially charged. They are not items on a to-do list with a beginning, middle, and end. They are the long-term endeavors that answer the question: Why am I deserving of all the attention I must pay myself just to survive?
A mattering project keeps you engaged in your own life. It gives coherence and purpose to your days. And if it fails or collapses, you do not just feel disappointed — you feel like your life makes no sense.
The diversity of mattering projects is astonishing. Walking the entire planet. Cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook. Raising flourishing children. Creating art no one may ever see. They look nothing alike on the outside. But they all serve the same function inside: they make a person feel that their life is not being wasted.
3. There are four strategies for mattering — and most people live in one more than the others
Rebecca’s decades of conversations point to four overarching strategies people use to satisfy the mattering instinct.
Heroic Strivers pursue internal standards of excellence — intellectual, artistic, athletic, ethical. They are not chasing fame or approval. They are trying to meet standards they have set for themselves. External success can feel hollow if they do not feel they have done excellent work.
Socializers find mattering through connection. For intimate socializers, it is the depth of their relationships — a spouse, children, a community — that makes life feel meaningful. For non-intimate socializers, it is a broader sense of being seen — fame, influence, or belonging to a group.
Competitors experience mattering as zero-sum. To matter means to matter more than others. They need to win. Losing is not just disappointing — it threatens their sense of existence. Frank Mink, the former neo-Nazi skinhead Rebecca befriended, was told by recruiters: “Look in the mirror. You matter more than all these others. They are stealing your mattering.” That is competitive mattering at its most destructive.
Transcenders seek to matter in the largest possible story. They believe there is a transcendent presence — God, the universe, eternity — who purposefully created them and for whom their life has a role to play. Rebecca grew up Orthodox Jewish and experienced this mattering deeply before losing her faith at thirteen.
4. We tend to universalize our own way of mattering — and that is where division begins
Because our mattering project means everything to us, and because we are never entirely sure it is working, we tend to assume our way is the right way. We universalize. Fashion editor Diana Vreeland said: “You have to dress well. That’s what gets you down the stairs in the morning. Without it, you are nothing.” Scientists talk down to humanists. Atheists talk down to believers. Believers question how atheists can have purpose.
The mere fact that others are living differently can feel like an affront — because if their way of mattering is valid, it raises questions about ours.
Rebecca’s Spinoza-inspired answer: “My aim is not to laugh at others, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” Instead of asking How can anyone believe that?, ask: What does this person believe they need in order to matter? That shift — from contempt to curiosity — is one of the most practical applications of this entire framework.
5. There are many right ways to matter, but there are also wrong ones
Rebecca is not a relativist. She argues that the best mattering projects are counter-entropic — they create things that demand order: knowledge, justice, beauty, fairness, love, flourishing. They build up. They add to the world.
Bad mattering projects are entropic. They destroy order. They take from others to fill a void in oneself. They require someone else to lose for you to win.
The invitation is not to find the right mattering project in some universal sense. It is to find your mattering project — the one that fits your temperament, your talents, your history — and to pursue it in a way that builds rather than destroys.
🤔 3 REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. What is your mattering project — and is it actually yours?
Not the one your parents hoped for. Not the one your industry rewards. Not the one that gets the most external validation. If your mattering project collapsed tomorrow — the career ended, the relationship dissolved, the creative work stopped — would you feel like your life had lost its meaning? That level of attachment is a signal you’ve found it. The question is whether it is genuinely yours or one you inherited.
2. Which of the four strategies most describes how you experience mattering?
Do you hear the question “Do I matter?” primarily as “Do I matter to others?” (socializer), “Have I met my own standards?” (heroic striver), “Am I ahead of others?” (competitor), or “Do I matter in the largest possible story?” (transcender)? Sit with this. Most of us have elements of more than one, but there is usually a dominant strategy — and naming it honestly can be clarifying.
3. Where are you universalizing your mattering strategy onto others?
In what areas of your life do you assume your way of finding meaning is the right way — and quietly judge those who do it differently? In your work, your health, your relationships, your values? The universalizing impulse is human and understandable. But it is also the source of much unnecessary conflict. What would it look like to hold your own mattering project firmly while genuinely making room for someone else’s?
🔑 1 KEY TAKEAWAY
Name your mattering project.
Not in a vague, aspirational way. In a specific, honest, self-reflective way. What is the thing that, if it went wrong, would make you question everything? What is the pursuit that gets you out of bed not because you have to, but because you need to? What is the work — visible or invisible, celebrated or obscure — that makes you feel your life is not being wasted?
That is your mattering project. And Rebecca’s argument is that identifying it clearly is not a philosophical exercise. It is a practical act of self-knowledge that changes how you live.
When your mattering project is working, you feel purpose, coherence, and a sense that your life makes sense. When it is failing — or when you are living someone else’s mattering project instead of your own — you feel restless, hollow, or worse.
The path is not to find the perfect project or to get it right once and for all. The path is to know yourself well enough to pursue what actually matters to you, in a way that builds something rather than takes something, and to keep choosing it — even when, especially when, it is hard.
