Meaning: is it part of your life? Have you found happiness? The basis for experiencing deeper meaning in life begins with some reflection on your life. With the aid of four steps, you’ll be able to move toward a greater sense of meaning in your life.
The following is a text version of this blog posting.
Consider for a moment life itself – your life – and finding meaning in your life. In doing so, it’s important to be aware that you’re the only one who can decide if your life is meaningful or meaningless. Your answer can’t be the one I have for my life. It needs to be uniquely your answer.
In trying to answer the question, “Is my life meaningful?” I’ve found that four steps are critical to arrive at the answer that’s right for you. These questions look at broad issues in our lives. Each of us has to add the details.
The first step is something objective. It’s a truth we don’t like to discuss. We all will die. From the time we’re born, our life is headed in one direction: to death. For some, death comes sooner than for others. But no one escapes death. No one can do it for us. When the moment happens, even if we’re surrounded by people who love us, we die alone and on our own. In other words, no matter what we do in life, the outcome is the same for all of us. Life leads to death.
Throughout our life span, we do a variety of things. Some people make noteworthy accomplishments. Most of us don’t. All of us, whether we do noteworthy things or not, get up each day and go through our routines. We go to sleep at night. Then we do it all again the next day. Our lives are very routine.
Given that we’re going to die and that our days are very routine, with one day following another, it seems reasonable to conclude that life is meaningless. That’s what some philosophers have said. Writers like Albert Camus and Fredrick Nietzsche thought that life was simply absurd and meaningless. But Martin Heidegger said that when we consider the dark reality and finality of death, that’s when we can see all of the brilliant colors of life.
This leads us to the second step. We are free to choose to see life as meaningless. Seeing that our lives end in death, we can say it’s all absurd. Or we can make a different choice. Recognizing that our lives end in death, we can see that in the face of death, there are brilliant colors in life that inspire us and lead us to a sense of awe. That freedom is ours.
The third step is another realization: no one can choose to see and experience life as brilliant or awe-inspiring except us. It’s something we do on our own. People may encourage or discourage you. But no one can do it for you. How we live our lives is up to us. This has to do with creating healthy boundaries in our relationships as well as taking responsibility for our own lives. No matter whether we are rich or poor, highly educated or dropped out of school …. none of the external aspects of life matter. What matters is that we realize that it’s our life and that we are free to choose to find meaning, purpose, and value in our lives.
That leads to the fourth step. That fourth step is moving to the place where we begin to find meaning, purpose, and value in our lives. It’s not all or nothing. It’s step-by-step. Most of us begin with small things. We find something we do or some relationship we have to be valuable to us. And then we build on that. Perhaps it starts by appreciating a sunset, a flower in bloom, or the kindness from a loved one. Based on that, we learn to look for similar things in our lives, the moments of beauty and the brilliant colors of being alive. In time, we come to experience life, our lives, as filled with meaningfulness and beauty.
When we find or encounter something that’s meaningful or valuable to us, that gives us a sense of meaning in life and helps us to see our lives as valuable. The process of developing meaning in life is interactive. As we find beauty, inspiration, hope, meaning, purpose, and value in our day-to-day lives, then our lives are infused with meaning, purpose, and value.
This is a very subjective process. What’s meaningful and valuable to you may be very different from other people. But it’s your life, and it’s your opportunity to live fully.
As you may know from other videos, I understand that the spiritual dimension of our lives is about meaning, purpose, and value in our lives. It’s this spiritual dimension, which we are free to choose to develop, that leads us to an understanding of our lives as meaningful, purposeful, and valuable.
I like how you have the video but also a blog so the written words can be seen. My mind gets more out of the written word. Thank you for sharing about this important aspect of life – purpose and meaning.
Frank: Somehow I missed this comment. Several people who followed the blog in written form for a number of years asked for a printed version when I switched to video. While there’s similar content between the video and the written postings, I’m sure you’ve noticed that they aren’t exactly the same. Thanks for your engagement. Lou
I like this. Realizing that nobody can do this work but ourselves seems like a necessary realization to me.
Buddhists teach something called “the Four Reminders.” It’s a teaching that seems to be step zero for beginning a Buddhist path. The reminders are, the preciousness of our lives, the reality that death is both certain and unpredictable, the undeniable truth of cause and effect, and futility of clinging to external circumstances for our happiness.
I have been contemplating these for about ten years, and finally just starting to feel these contemplations settling into a deep sense of reality. I’m finding that the more I feel these truths, the more motivated I am to meditate, listen to my teacher, and generally just wake up. It’s a relief to have a greater sense of clarity.
Jane: Thanks for sharing this. While I was drawing on some of the 20th Century European existential writers for this one, there are clear parallels to Buddhist philosophy. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that humanity keeps wrestling to find meaning in life, particularly when we have no control over life events.