What makes life feel meaningful? This dissertation explores how certain positive emotions—beyond mere pleasure—contribute to our sense of meaning in life. While traditional theories separate well-being (feeling good) from meaningfulness (doing good), emerging perspectives suggest that meaningful activities must also feel emotionally rich. Bridging philosophy and psychology, I investigate the role of self-transcendent positive emotions—those that direct us beyond ourselves—compared to more self-centred pleasures. My experimental research identifies three distinct families of positive emotions: Hedonic self-centred emotions, and two self-transcendent types—Social and Epistemic. I show that these emotion types arise in different contexts and have different effects on our sense of meaning. Strikingly, only the Social family—emotions like compassion or being moved—is consistently linked to the feeling that life is meaningful. Finally, I explore how experiences of social belonging elicit these emotions, offering new insights into how relationships and shared values help us feel that our lives truly matter.