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This essay is in response to R. Weinberg, whose title well-summarizes the article: “Ultimate Meaning: We Don’t Have It, We Can’t Get It, and We Should Be Very, Very Sad.” This response accepts the idea that life is pointless but argues against the non sequitur that we should be very, very sad. There is a question as to whether “should” means that being sad is the appropriate thing to do, or whether it is a prediction about what will happen if people understand the pointlessness of life. Either way, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, clearly the implied causal path from thought to feeling does not always hold; considerable evidence suggests that, often, causation goes the other way around, that feelings influence thoughts. A person’s feeling sad or depressed might increase the likelihood that the person will conclude that life is pointless, or that the person will worry about it. Nobody has proven that the pointlessness of existence is incompatible with satisfaction in one’s life, or that not feeling sad means one is overlooking the pointlessness of life, or that feeling sad is more appropriate or better in some way. In sum, I wish people happiness and urge them to try to construct a meaning in their life.

Keywords: meaning of life; happiness; sadness; psychology; reasoning; emotion; reasoning and emotion