Living a Purposeful Life: Searching for Meaning in All the Wrong Places

Kalman J. Kaplan

Aug 2020 · Wipf and Stock Publishers

About this ebook

While meaning and purpose are often seen as synonymous, this book argues that they sometimes are in opposition, the search for meaning at times suicidal, and living with purpose life-enhancing and invigorating. No people seemed to search for meaning in their lives more than did the ancient and classical Greeks. They were not content with living simple lives but oftentimes took on gargantuan tasks which resulted in a great deal of upheaval and unpleasantness in their everyday lives, and oftentimes to disaster, indeed suicide. The biblical human being, in contrast, is not driven to search for meaning in this way. One's purpose is inherent in daily life. He does not need to search for it. The God of the Hebrew Bible makes the human being, man and woman, in His own image. He then breathes life into man. Life has an inherent purpose. Man must be a steward of God's creation.

About the author

Kalman J. Kaplan is Fellow, American Psychological Association; Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois, Chicago College of Medicine; and Adjunct Professor, Spertus Institute of Jewish Learning and Leadership. He has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation at Tel Aviv University and John Templeton Foundation to develop a biblical approach to mental health. He has published approximately twenty books and a hundred articles, including a trilogy of plays, placing Oedipus within a biblical context.