Meaning. What a big word.
When I say that I am looking ways to create a meaningful life, it sound grand and ambitious, doesn’t it?
But what do I really mean when I say that? Am I looking for one big meaning, a magic pill that will guide me through all my actions once I discover it? Some people seem to have found that kind of meanings to their lives, something they spent their whole lives fighting for. Take Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King or Gandhi for examples.
That’s far from reach for most of us. Could it be that meaning can be something more down to earth as well, something that we can reach without watering down the big idea?
Often with hard questions it helps to turn the question around and ask the opposite question. I thought that could help here as well, and tried to describe what meaning is not. But as I started creating a list of things that meaning is not, I realized that even that is hard. If I wanted to list non-meaningful things, that would only define my idea of meaning.
I don’t believe the world as a whole needs to have a meaning, and thus we have no moral imperative to act in one given way. To me meaning comes down to other people, but who am I to say that that’s the only way to look at meaning? I will follow my gut on this one, and keep people at the center of meaning, but let me know in the comments if you disagree!
Meaning is what gets you out of bed every morning. It could be an idea that you still have something you can change in this world or yourself for the better.
Viktor Frankl, psychologist who survived years on Nazi concentration camps and a respected authority on meaning, writes in his classic work “Man’s Search for Meaning,”
It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
As I see it, it boils down to staring back to life and standing up to live boldly whatever comes your way. Maybe it’s all about your attitude. An attitude of love can turn every day into a meaningful one.
Again, by Frankl:
We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.
Loving the art, loving your message, and loving the people who will receive your work transforms the process from working to get into working to give — and gives it meaning.
Loving the people you meet and bringing love to your experiences transforms your attitude from “What’s in it for me?” into “What can I do?” and gives it meaning.
Loving yourself will change your attitude toward unavoidable suffering from blame and frustration towards seeking ways to improve yourself. You will start asking “What can I learn from this?” instead of seeking for revenge.
We still have this day, so we get to live it with meaning, right now.
No pastel colors and big feelings of oneness, but trying to understand what the world is really like, even if it breaks your heart. Trying to get into the shoes of someone else and to understand what she really needs right now.
That’s grace.
Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
