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What's the Mattering?

Real Simple

|

February / March 2026

It’s the basic human need to feel valued; it’s also the opportunity to add value. Jennifer Breheny Wallace, author of the wildly popular book Never Enough, is here to elaborate.

- Melissa Matthews

What's the Mattering?

you matter! And you can help others feel like they matter too! Those are the two biggest takeaways from Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s latest book called—you guessed it—Mattering. “We are in a loneliness epidemic,” Wallace explains. “At the root of this is a mattering gap. When people don’t feel like they matter, they withdraw or isolate.” According to Wallace, we can experience this mattering gap in big and small ways every single day. Think: You don’t get the recognition at work that you were hoping for. You feel unseen during a group dinner. Or your partner is taking you for granted. No thanks to any of that! Here, some of Wallace’s tips to remind ourselves—and others—that we do, in fact, matter.

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