When I first heard Dr. Gleb Tsipursky interviewed on the Humanist Hour podcast about his new website, Intentional Insights, and this self-directed online course on an evidence-based discovery of your life's purpose and meaning, I thought it sounded exactly like something Sunday Assemblers would be interested in.

It turns out there's quite a bit of solid research into how people create meaning and purpose in their lives (and, spoiler alert, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religion).  Dr. Tsipursky has pored over the science and developed this 12 lesson course to assist people in exploring and developing their personal meaning and purpose.  We've been in contact with him and he has suggested for a small group, a good way to work through the course would be 2 lessons at a time over 6 weeks.  He's also said he could join the group for the final meeting via Skype (he's at Ohio State University).

Once we have a group interested, we can figure out a good night of the week to meet.  We're thinking about starting early/mid-July and going though August.  But this will be determined by the group.

Here's a description of the course from the Intentional Insights website:

Have you ever felt like you go through the motions every day but it all seems meaningless? Did you know that you can use science to help you find a sense of life purpose? Wait, but science can’t answer life’s big questions – that’s the job of religion, right? Well, a wave of recent research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and other disciplines has explored how we find meaning and purpose in life, with or without religion! People who feel a lack of meaning and purpose can use science to fill that emptiness deep in the pit of their stomach. This course combines an engaging narrative style, academic research, and stories from people’s everyday lives with exercises to help you discover your own sense of life purpose and meaning. 

The course is informed by the author’s own academic scholarship on meaning and purpose, his experience as a teacher, and his role as President of Intentional Insights. This nonprofit organization is devoted to helping people refine and reach their goals by providing research-based content to help improve thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns.

COURSE GOALS

By the completion of this course, students should be able to:

Customize these tools to their personal search for a deeper sense of life purpose