Introducing Tether

Tether is a publication dedicated to bridging the growing science of purpose with the richness of its lived experience. Designed for curious readers, practitioners, and community-engaged academic researchers, Tether invites exploration, reflection, and dialogue around what it means to have a sense of purpose.

The inaugural issue introduces a foundational perspective that research on purpose in life and the rising desire to cultivate purpose in everyday living should be brought into closer conversation. This issue highlights the launch of the Purpose Science and innovation Exchange (PSiX) at Cornell University and presents seven guiding pillars of purpose inquiry that guide PSiX’s work. These pillars underscore how research can more deeply inform lived experience and how lived experience, in turn, can sharpen and expand our scientific understanding.

Tether will always be free to download and designed to be returned to as needed, marked up, and discussed with other readers. We hope you’ll not only read it, but engage with it and reflect on it, and ultimately we hope that you’ll help shape future issues to come.