introduction
You undoubtedly want to live a meaningful life. Me too. Unfortunately, like every other older adult, I'm staring down the barrels of decrepitude, senility, and irrelevance.
Yet I refuse to fade away like some tired old has-been! Instead, I want to burn brightly and live a fulfilling life, right till the very end.
However, the burning question remains: What is the best way to live a life of meaning as we get old? After all, the challenges of aging pose a formidable barrier to our search for purpose, coherence, and significance.
After extensive research, I've discovered that my best chance at finding meaning in life—despite getting older —is to commit to my Hero's Journey through heroic aging.
a heroic life is a life of meaning
"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." — Joseph Campbell
It was Joseph Campbell who first noticed that mythological hero stories across different cultures and times share a common archetypal structure, which he termed the ‘Hero’s Journey’ 1. Crucially, the more closely people’s life stories resemble the archetypal Hero’s Journey, the more meaningful they report their lives to be 2.
More striking still, when normal people rewrote their life histories as a Hero’s Journey, they experienced both an increase in meaning and were empowered to find more meaningful solutions to life problems 2.
Heroism offers a sure path to a life of meaning by providing the necessary scaffolding to experience coherence, purpose, and significance. If simply reimagining our life stories as heroic increases meaning, imagine how meaningful our lives could be if we really became more heroic.
This research confirms what we've discovered: heroes don't just accidentally stumble into meaningful lives—they systematically create them. Through skin in the game, they forge coherence by aligning actions with values. Through service to others, they build unshakeable purpose. Through genuine sacrifice, they achieve profound significance.
The Hero's Journey isn't just a story structure—it's a blueprint for meaning.
what is a meaningful life?
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
The question of what constitutes a life worth living has been the focus of intense philosophical investigation for millennia.
More recently, psychologists have applied the scientific method to the question of what makes a life meaningful, and they have converged on three foundational concepts, which together constitute a meaningful life 3. These three elements are i) coherence, ii) purpose, and iii) significance 3. Crucial to our own search for meaning, heroism supports all three foundations of a meaningful life.
coherence
Researchers define coherence as “a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense” 3. Coherence is essential for human flourishing because humans have evolved a reward system that detects patterns in the environment that enhance our survival and flourishing 3.
When things are reliable, predictable, and working, we are inclined to feel happy and secure 3. In contrast, when the situation is chaotic and unpredictable, we feel anxious and are therefore motivated to change our situation, hopefully for the better 3.
The same holds true for our inner life. When our core values are aligned with our actions and the actions of our group or tribe, we are more likely to be content. However, when our core values conflict with your actions and the actions of our social network, or worse, we don’t have a set of core values at all, then we are far more likely to experience anxiety and unhappiness.
There’s a reason the greatest minds in philosophy place virtue at the pinnacle of human achievement: Virtue is the foundation of moral and psychological coherence.
Think virtuously, act virtuously, and live a coherent life.
heroism increases coherence
Heroes are virtuous 4. By orientating ourselves towards heroism, we automatically orientate ourselves towards virtue, the North Star that guides us through our most difficult and challenging trials.
Heroism, by firmly anchoring us within the constraints of heroic virtue, ensures that we maintain psychological and moral coherence, even during the most stressful and gruelling periods of our lives.
purpose
"No man is a hero until he tries to make the world a better place." — Unknown
Having a sense of purpose means pursuing a set of core goals and having an overall sense of direction for your life trajectory 3. Having a clear purpose protects us from the inevitable stress and trauma of life by providing us with a concrete way to maintain forward momentum. In stark contrast, not having a clear sense of purpose means living an aimless life. And when the going gets tough (as it inevitably does), those without purpose are screwed.
How can we overcome the major setbacks life throws at us if you don’t have a clear purpose? We can’t.
This is where the hero's advantage becomes crystal clear. While others struggle to find direction, heroes have built-in purpose: their mission to serve something greater than themselves. Every challenge becomes meaningful because it's connected to their heroic quest.
heroism increases purpose
The heart and soul of the Hero’s journey is the underlying heroic quest. In other words, a defined mission or sense of purpose is the core component of the Hero’s Journey.
Fortunately for the budding hero, there are an infinite number of heroic quests. For example, our heroic purpose could be to become a better role model for someone in your family or strengthening our local community. Alternatively, our heroic focus could be directed towards a creative domain.
The list of heroic quests is endless!
The crucial point is that a sense of purpose is baked into heroism. Heroism is purpose, personified!
everyday significance
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." — Mahatma Gandhi
The presence of significance endows us with the ‘sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living’ 3. Alternatively, the absence of significance implies that our life has little value or worth, a truly grim fate.
To be honest, I’ve found significance to be the toughest of the three foundations of meaning to realize in my own life. Is my life cosmically significant? Absolutely not. If I were to cease to exist, the universe would not even notice, much less care.
What is the point of living if life has no meaning?
Well, it turns out that life really can have meaning, but it’s all a question of scale. Specifically, when I constrain my quest for significance to myself, my immediate friends, and my family, the quest for significance in life suddenly seems achievable 5.
In our search for significance, we should take heed of stoic wisdom and focus only on what is within our control. The good news is that experiencing everyday significance is within our control. Regrettably, experiencing cosmic significance is not.
heroism increases everyday significance
While our Hero’s Journey is a personal one, heroism is ultimately a life of service, be it serving our family, our friends, our community, or some higher cause.
Granted, serving others certainly has significant potential downsides. For one, a life of service increases our chances of being exploited, and there is far less time for self-indulgence. However, the upside is that living a life of service is a reliable and proven path to experience significance.
what is heroic aging?
"Beware the old soldier who still stands - they survived what killed everyone else." — Military proverb
Perhaps you are contemplating your Hero’s Journey, but you are worried about committing given the additional physical, mental, and emotional challenges inherent to older age. The truth is, these challenges don't disqualify you from heroism— rather, they make heroism more essential.
This is where heroic aging comes to the rescue.
Heroic Aging is a modular 'heroic algorithm'—a science-backed framework that helps you maintain skin in the game and live meaningfully, despite getting older.
While aging may limit your physical capabilities, it cannot touch your capacity for purpose, coherence, and significance. In fact, the wisdom, knowledge, and emotional intelligence that come with age make your heroic contributions even more powerful.
The foundational heroic aging modules are Body (maintaining your physical independence), Mind (maintaining your cognitive powers), Soul (enabling a transcendent state), Heroism (the philosophy of heroism), and Solitude (to support the introverted or solitary hero).
Each module is designed to keep you in the game—to ensure that aging enhances rather than erodes your capacity for meaningful action.
take home message
"Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Like everything in life, the younger you start your hero's journey, the better—but it's never too late to begin.
Anyone, at any age, at any time, can begin their hero's journey.
Instead of viewing aging as decline, heroic aging reframes older age as your most important chapter. Your accumulated wisdom, your refined values, and your deeper understanding of life, all position you for your greatest heroic contributions.
So, the question isn't whether you'll age—you will. The question is whether you'll age heroically.
references and further reading
1 Campbell, J. The hero with a thousand faces. Vol. 17 (New World Library, 2008).
2 Rogers, B. A. et al. Seeing your life story as a Hero’s Journey increases meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2023).
3 Martela, F. & Steger, M. F. The meaning of meaning in life: Coherence, purpose and significance as the three facets of meaning. Journal of Positive Psychology 11, 531-545 (2016).
4 Gander, F., Wagner, L., Vylobkova, V., Kretzschmar, A. & Ruch, W. Paragons of character—character strengths and well‐being of moral, creative, and religious exemplars. Journal of Personality 92, 1514-1527 (2024).
5 Martela, F. & Steger, M. F. The role of significance relative to the other dimensions of meaning in life–an examination utilizing the three dimensional meaning in life scale (3DM). The Journal of Positive Psychology 18, 606-626 (2023).