In Pursuit of a Meaningful Life
I used to be a pretty happy guy.
In fact, my brother and cousin always used to say they knew when I was coming home from work because they could hear me laughing and singing all the way down Green St. as I rode my neon orange Schwinn toward the pink house on the corner we called home.
The pink house was a beautiful time in my life. I was just a baby in my early 20s with little to no responsibility and a wide-eyed view of the world. I imagined that someday I would finally muster the ability to grow a rich mustache just like my cousin could.
I thought that maybe all my dreams would come true. (I’m 32 now and I still can’t grow a prized mustache.) I was also deeply committed to spiritual pursuits and fell in love with The Book of Secrets by the late Osho. The purple-bound book became my guide as I considered a life of solitude and meditation in a far off land.
But that far off land never drew near as I came to realize that no matter where you go there you will always be. I learned that solitude did not require isolation and that a peaceful soul could be cultivated without saying goodbye to all the ones I loved.
Looking back I can clearly see the extreme nature of my naïve mind. Yet there was vitality in a singular sense of purpose and desire. And maybe that’s where the laughing and singing came from as I rode the bright orange Schwinn back and forth to work every day. Still, I can’t help but recognize that in this inebriated state of perpetual bliss that I was chasing after, I had managed to remove myself from much of reality.
For years I disconnected from the real world. I never watched the news and I intentionally kept myself out of deep conversations about the system in which the world operated.
I did an incredible job of avoiding discomfort. All the while married to the belief that I was upholding some sort of metaphysical purity by transcending this discomfort.
Somehow I sobered up.
I stopped avoiding the world. Avoiding discomfort. And in the process, I came to see the inescapable truth that I was in fact a contributor to the system in which I existed. That everyone is a contributor and that we are all in this together.
After that, there was a little less singing, a little less laughing, but a lot more humanity. I finally felt the thorn of the rose I had been clutching in my hands all those years.
There was a shift in my identity as I began to pursue a meaningful life with the world in mind, not just my own selfish desire to escape from reality. Of course, this pursuit came with its own unique set of challenges that I was unprepared for.
I didn’t know who I was in the real world.
I was so focused on living in perpetual bliss that when the medication wore off I found myself living in someone else’s dream.
My job wasn’t fulfilling. At the time I was working as a carpenter but I never seemed to fully grasp the basic principles of carpentry. My mind didn’t really work that way. I tried for a number of years to make the internal connection to the craft but I never fully arrived. I never felt creative. And because of this, I felt meaningless.
I felt like I wasn’t contributing anything to the world. Like I was wasting away. Wasting my time working without purpose. It hurt a lot actually. I felt useless a lot of the time. Like nothing really mattered. Or at the very least, that what I was doing didn’t matter at all. That if I had suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t make any difference.
Not that I was considering taking my life. Far from it. I don’t think I have actually ever entertained such a thought process. My thoughts were these:
Am I honestly all that interested in doing this everyday?
Is my contribution in this particular area significant enough to offset my potential contribution in another?
Do I actually care about meeting the challenges associated with this profession?
Are my natural talents being utilized?
When I confronted myself with these questions it became clear that I was needed somewhere else.
Maybe that was a stupid way to look at it, but that’s how I felt. Being disconnected from my true nature was burdensome and I could tell that I was growing increasingly distant from who I truly was.
Through months of internal struggle, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer expect to find meaning on my current path. Meaning would have to be found outside of the world that I had created for myself. But finding meaning is not as simple as one might imagine. Or maybe I’m just bad at figuring it out. Either way, it is at times a painful and arduous process and yet in the very next moment, blissful and simple.
I learned over time that the pursuit of a meaningful life never ends. Sometimes there is pain, sometimes bliss, but we never fully arrive because there is no finality. This is the beauty of the process. The willingness to move and pivot on the journey knowing it never ends.
To make friends with uncertainty and find peace in change.
I found that at the heart of meaning lies willingness.
The willingness to answer difficult questions and confront deep-seated beliefs. The willingness to get to the root of who you are.
Who am I? Was the question that brought me closest to the heart of meaning.
This question is my guide.
And I found that the pursuit of a meaningful life is tied directly to answering this timeless question.
In fact, I believe it is a requirement to understand what constitutes a life of meaning.
When we answer this question we discover the values and priorities that govern our lives. We learn about our interests and begin to understand the challenges that inspire and motivate us. We uncover our talents and learn how to utilize them in solving such challenges.
It is at the intersection of our values, interests, and talents that we find the path to a meaningful life because through this process we learn how to give back to the world in a way that is uniquely aligned with our highest self.
Through the act of giving we find meaning.
Every year my grandparents make me a handmade birthday card with a poem about my life, who I am, and what I am currently going through. It always ends with their signature tag line: “With Hugs and Kisses and Always Best Wishes. Love Nan and Pops.”
There are usually a number of semi-embarrassing photographs adorning the card taken by my grandfather over the years. Sometimes they accidentally put pictures of my brothers in the card instead, which always makes for a good laugh as I read the card aloud to my humongous family.
Every year those birthday cards bring me so much joy. Now I keep them tucked away in the sock drawer of my dresser and revisit them when I’m trying to match a pair of my favorite argyle socks or when I’m feeling particularly nostalgic.
Nowadays it seems like there are more cards than socks in this drawer, but of all the birthday cards I have received in my life I have not kept a single one without a personal note written inside. Whether that card cost $0.99 or $20.00, if there was nothing personal written within, it doesn’t make it to the sock drawer.
It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the other cards, it’s simply the fact that they were not as valuable to me based on the meaning that they hold in my life.
We do this for so many things in our lives.
Endlessly revisiting childhood memories of swatting fireflies as the sun sets on another day of climbing towering trees in the backyard. Keeping Frank Zappa in constant rotation on my music playlist because I can’t imagine a world without songs about dental floss farmers. Reading the same pages in Book of Secrets over and over again because they speak to my soul. Writing as often as I can because I feel so damn connected to myself when words turn into pages.
The things that have the greatest meaning in our lives hold the greatest value.
That is why we feel euphoric when we give something away that is highly meaningful to us. The value of the gift elevates our connection to the act of giving and we become much more invested in the process.
The pursuit of a meaningful life requires that we understand ourselves enough to give back to the world that we consider being of greatest value, and therefore, meaning, in our lives.
This principle holds the key to a life of greater meaning.
My brother Nathan cooks with magic. Every dish is sensational. He dances through the whole process with an effortless natural rhythm. He is the kind of chef that can open up a stranger's fridge and see a finished meal.
I remember him helping my mother in the kitchen from an early age. He gravitated toward the stove like a moth to a flame. One night my mother asked him to bake up a few chicken breasts for our dinner while she took care of some other matters. Of course, he jumped at the chance.
I watched those chicken breasts turn from a pale lifeless pink to a deliciously crispy brown skin in under an hour.
“Nathan, what did you?” My mother asked. “It’s so good.”
It was better than good. It was the best I’d ever had. I still have no idea what he did to that chicken but I’ll never forget the look on my mom’s face at the dinner table that night. She was in shock.
That’s how I feel every time I am blessed with a meal he has created. You can taste the joy. And seeing how happy he is in the process is beautiful. For Nathan, preparing a meal for others is of great meaning to him.
It brings together his values, interests, and talents in a magical way, and sharing his creation with others only amplifies how meaningful it is.
When we are more deeply aligned with these three critical elements, we are able to experience greater meaning in our lives. We operate in congruence with our true nature and thus giving from this foundation resonates within us as highly meaningful.
For Nathan, this comes forth in his cooking, among other things.
But not all forms of giving provide an equal sense of meaning…
