How can I find meaning while living with cancer?

The National Cancer Institute's answer is smaller and more daily than people expect. Pay attention to the things you do each day that make you smile. NCI's own examples are a good cup of coffee, time with a child, or a talk with a friend.

It also names things that carry more weight for some people. Being in nature. Praying in a place that has meaning. Playing a game you love. Cooking a good meal.

What NCI actually observes

NCI describes a pattern rather than a prescription. Some people treat cancer as a wake-up call and realize how much the small things matter. They go places they have never been. They finish projects they had set aside. They spend more time with friends and family. They mend broken relationships.

NCI also lists specific ways to build a sense of hope: plan your days and schedule as you always have, try not to limit the things you like doing, look for reasons to have hope and write them down, spend time in nature, reflect on religious or spiritual beliefs, and listen to stories about people with cancer who are leading active lives.

None of that requires feeling positive first. That is the useful part.

The evidence on spirituality is more specific than it sounds

NCI's health professional summary on spirituality in cancer care contains findings worth knowing, whether or not a person is religious.

One study grouped people into three types. Religious people, who highly value faith, spiritual well-being, and the meaning of life. Existential people, who value spiritual well-being but not religious faith. And nonspiritual people, who place little value on any of it. The third group was far more distressed about their illness, and adjusted worse, than the other two.

The summary is careful about what that does and does not prove. It notes that limited data support the idea that spiritual coping is one of the most powerful means by which patients draw on their own resources during serious illness.

Being spiritual and being religious are not the same thing. In one survey NCI cites, of 369 cancer outpatients in New York City, 66% described themselves as spiritual but not religious, 29% attended religious services weekly, and 6% identified as agnostic or atheist.

The gap almost nobody closes

This is the most actionable finding in the whole summary.

In a study of 230 patients with advanced cancer, 47% said their spiritual needs were not being met by a religious community. Seventy-two percent said those needs were not supported by the medical system.

Where such support did exist, it was linked to better quality of life. And having the medical team address spiritual issues had more effect than pastoral counseling alone on hospice use and on reducing aggressive end-of-life measures.

The summary also notes that patients and family caregivers are often reluctant to raise these concerns with clinicians, and that clinicians are ambivalent about raising them first. So the conversation frequently never happens.

Hospital chaplains exist for exactly this, and they serve people of any faith or none. Asking for one is a request most cancer centers can fill the same week. Our guide to spiritual care when you are not religious covers what that looks like, and the piece on depression and cancer covers when low mood has become something treatable.

The line worth keeping separate

Feeling that life has no meaning is on NCI's list of emotional signs of depression, and its instruction there is different. If signs last more than two weeks, talk to a doctor about treatment.

For thoughts of suicide, NCI says to dial 911 in an emergency, or call, text, or chat 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, staffed 24 hours a day.

NCI's feelings page was last updated on April 9, 2025.

Sources

• https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/coping/feelings
• https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/coping/day-to-day/faith-and-spirituality/spirituality-hp-pdq