Why people routinely dismiss (and miss) life’s meaningful moments

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Imagine skipping Thanksgiving dinner with your family or passing up a chance to write a heartfelt thank-you note, believing these moments aren’t worth your time. Think again. A researcher from the University of Florida finds that people consistently underestimate the profound emotional impact of life’s seemingly mundane experiences.

Dr. Erin Westgate, an assistant professor of psychology leading the research, has uncovered a curious human tendency: we’re remarkably bad at predicting how meaningful our experiences will be.

“We don’t make sense of events until they actually happen,” Westgate explains in a university release. “We don’t process events until we need to, when they actually happen and not before.”

The research began with a simple yet provocative question during Westgate’s graduate school days: Do people accurately anticipate the emotional significance of future events? Her initial study with University of Virginia undergraduates provided a surprising answer. Students consistently misjudged how meaningful their Thanksgiving holiday would be, underestimating the emotional depth of the experience.

Intrigued by these initial findings, Westgate expanded her research during the pandemic, replicating the study with a larger group of University of Florida students. The results were consistent: people systematically fail to recognize the potential meaning in upcoming experiences.

This isn’t just about holiday gatherings. The three-year National Science Foundation-funded study will explore how this psychological blind spot affects major life decisions — from career choices and volunteer work to personal milestones like starting a family. Perhaps most intriguingly, the research will examine how people might avoid potentially transformative experiences that involve discomfort, missing out on opportunities for personal growth and resilience.

“We want to live meaningful lives, we want to do meaningful things,” Westgate notes. “If we are not realizing that an experience is going to be meaningful, we may be less likely to do it and miss out on these potential sources of meaning in our own lives.”

The ultimate goal of the research is not just to understand this phenomenon, but to develop strategies to help people better recognize and embrace potentially meaningful experiences.

“Sometimes we go into a project, and we know what we are going to find,” Westgate says. “This is one of those projects that surprised us.”

So, if you’re thinking about skipping this Thanksgiving or your family’s annual holiday get-together this year, stop for a second and reconsider. That seemingly insignificant moment might just be the source of unexpected meaning you’ve been overlooking.