Meaning Is Not Optional

We often speak about meaning as though it were a luxury.

Something to think about when the practical matters of life have been taken care of.

First, we need to make money. Pay the bills. Go to work. Raise our children. Manage our responsibilities. Get through the week.

Then, perhaps, if there is time left over, we can ask the larger questions.

What is my life about?

What matters most?

What am I living for?

But I wonder if we have the order backward.

Meaning is not something we can simply choose to have or not have.

We are always living toward something.

Even when we are not consciously asking what our lives mean, we are answering the question through the way we spend our time, the things we pursue, the sacrifices we make, and the people we love.

Our lives are always oriented toward something.

The question is not whether we have meaning.

The question is:

What is giving your life meaning?

For one person, it may be achievement.

For another, family.

For another, security.

For another, freedom.

For another, recognition.

For another, service.

For another, pleasure.

For another, faith.

For many of us, it is some complicated combination of all these things.

None of this is necessarily wrong.

The problem begins when the things we have organized our lives around no longer give us what we thought they would.

The promotion arrives, but the satisfaction doesn't.

The relationship ends.

The children grow up.

The career that once felt meaningful begins to feel empty.

The beliefs that once provided certainty no longer seem adequate.

The life we built begins to feel strangely disconnected from the person we have become.

These moments can be deeply unsettling.

They can also be invitations.

Because meaning is not simply something we find once and then possess forever.

Meaning must be continually discovered, examined, and sometimes rebuilt.

We change.

Our circumstances change.

The people we love change.

Our understanding of ourselves changes.

What gave our lives meaning ten years ago may not be enough to sustain us now.

This does not necessarily mean that something has gone wrong.

It may mean that we are growing.

One of the difficult things about being human is that we can become very good at pursuing things without ever stopping to ask whether they are worth pursuing.

We can become busy without knowing what we are busy for.

We can become successful according to someone else's definition.

We can accumulate accomplishments while gradually losing contact with our own lives.

And because our culture gives us so many ways to remain distracted, we can go a remarkably long time without noticing.

Until something interrupts us.

A diagnosis.

A death.

A divorce.

A child leaving home.

A new job.

A move.

A moment of unexpected beauty.

Sometimes meaning becomes visible when the ordinary patterns of life are disrupted.

We are forced to stop.

And in the stillness, questions emerge.

Is this the life I want to be living?

What am I actually working toward?

What would I be willing to suffer for?

What is worth giving my time to?

What kind of person do I want to become?

These are not questions with simple answers.

They are also not questions we can permanently answer once and for all.

We live into our answers.

A meaningful life is not necessarily a life that is always happy.

In fact, meaning often gives us the capacity to endure difficulty.

When we know why something matters, we can often bear more of the difficulty involved in pursuing it.

A parent wakes in the night because a child needs them.

A person cares for an aging parent.

Someone continues working toward justice despite setbacks.

An artist continues creating despite uncertainty.

A person chooses to forgive even when forgiveness is difficult.

Meaning does not eliminate suffering.

But it can change our relationship to suffering.

This may be one of the reasons that the question of meaning matters so deeply.

We can endure a great deal when we believe our lives are connected to something worth enduring for.

The opposite is also true.

Even a comfortable life can begin to feel unbearable when we no longer understand what it is for.

Perhaps this is part of what many people are experiencing today.

We have more information than ever.

More entertainment.

More options.

More ways to communicate.

More ways to distract ourselves.

And yet many people feel strangely directionless.

The problem may not be that we lack things to do.

The problem may be that we have lost contact with why we are doing them.

Meaning cannot be downloaded.

It cannot be purchased.

It cannot be optimized.

It has to be lived.

And often, it has to be discovered slowly.

Through attention.

Through relationship.

Through responsibility.

Through suffering.

Through love.

Through the willingness to ask honest questions about the life we are actually living.

This is where reflection becomes important.

Because the meaning of our lives is often revealed not by what we say matters, but by what our lives consistently demonstrate that we value.

Where does your time go?

What do you repeatedly think about?

What are you willing to sacrifice for?

What do you miss when it is gone?

What makes you feel most alive?

What kind of suffering feels worthwhile?

These questions may tell us something about the meaning already taking shape in our lives.

And perhaps we do not need to begin by discovering one grand purpose for our entire existence.

Perhaps meaning begins more simply.

With paying attention to what matters today.

With taking responsibility for the people and commitments already entrusted to us.

With noticing what brings life and what diminishes it.

With asking whether the way we are spending our lives is aligned with what we say we value.

Meaning is not optional.

We are already living toward something.

The question is whether we are paying attention to what that something is.

And whether, when we look closely, we find a life we recognize as our own.