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Meaning of Life

Giving Our Life Meaning
BY: T. Franklin Murphy | January 1, 2018 (modified January 2, 2023)

A book open with light flowing from pages. A Flourishing Life Society article on the Meaning of Life
Adobe Stock Images
​We squander time seeking a grand meaning of life; but we should, instead, use precious time to create a meaningful life.
​
Here it is, presented in a beautifully wrapped package, succinctly written in easy to follow words—the meaning of life. Do I have your attention? Humans have searched for the meaning of life ever since they stumbled on consciousness. When we are not planning for our next meal, shelter or sexual partner, we ruminate about what’s it all about, anyway. The ingenious human mind has constructed complex, simple and cockamamie theories over the millennia. Shared beliefs often bind peoples together, motivating them to good and evil.

​
We Want Meaning

​​​The drive to know the purpose of life is like a cruel joke. We want to know something beyond our capacity to know, frustratingly we grasp at straws to create a castle. Perhaps the answer is not in the imaginary castle but in the blades of straw we hold in our hands. As we narrow our vision, zeroing in on aspects of living, we find purpose and purpose enriches our experience and gives fullness to life.

The Value of Meaning

​Carl Jung mused, “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” We may search the giant libraries of the grandest universities, devouring philosophy from the great minds of humanity and never stumble upon the enriching gifts of meaning.
 
“Hang up philosophy! Unless philosophy can make a Juliet…” William Shakespeare
 
The words, no matter how bright and intelligent, fail where the heart presides. Science struggles to integrate the world of neurons into the rich mental life of feelings, sensations, and meanings. Sitting on top of Maslow’s pyramid rest self-actualization—a meaningful life. But those that achieve peace don’t subscribe to a universal doctrine of meaning. They haven’t read from a golden book, discovered in a distant cave, revealing carefully guarded secrets of meaning. Their self-actualization and peace stem from living a meaningful life—Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr.

​​We Give Meaning to Events in Our Lives

​Our suffering, achievements and motivations all are subject to meaning. The meanings give life to our existence. Through meaning the emptiness is filled and the shadows disperse with light. But meaning is subjective and often dictated by painful pasts. The sorrows can absorb goodness out of life, leaving meanings parched and cynical, shattering fundamental assumptions (people are good, the world is just, the environment is safe and predictable).

​Life becomes senseless and devoid of self-actualizing purpose. When meaningless prevails, we are held hostage by evils in our lives, slipping into the depths of depression. Especially in hardship, we need purposeful meaning to lighten our load and re-infuse our life with hope. We need to suffer well.

Michael Eigen suggests that experience shifts meanings in different contexts “Spirit, mind, I, Self, consciousness, unconscious, psyche, breath, energy, meaning, personality, body aliveness, variable fields of being—.” How we experience the happening of living depends deeply on the machinery of the mind. What goes in is subject to the twisting and turning of complexity before being spit out into a coherent story of purpose. When life is too chaotic, the processing of experience can go awry. The pain, the sorrow and the shocks make no sense; life has no meaning and we collapse. “When one’s scream becomes meaningless,” we no longer scream when wronged. (Toxic Nourishment; Michael Eigen; 1999.)

​
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."

~Albert Camus


​Shattered Meanings

When life experience overwhelms, collapsing previous expectations of life, invalidating how we once made sense of the world, the mind churns over the experience seeking to assign a place of meaning. Some events have no logical meaning. The cruelty of the world collides with our serene existence creating unpredictable chaos that we can’t explain. Our ruminations attempt to find meaning that doesn’t exist. In these instances, we must intervene with a self-disciplined rumination. Emily Esfahani Smith refers to this process as “deliberate rumination.”
 
Our purposeful ruminations forge meaning rather than find meaning. The purpose for a singular event may lie hidden in complexity; we can only accept the pain by accepting that life, at times, is undefinable. We must redirect our mind to key areas that establish foundations of meaning. We need purposeful goals and supporting relationships.
 
In The Developing Mind, Daniel Siegal declares, “the way the mind establishes meaning is closely linked to social interactions and both meaning making and relationships appear to be mediated via the same neural circuits responsible for initiating emotional processes.”

​Loneliness and Lack of Meaning

​Loneliness and lack of meaning often travel together. We need our pain to be meaningful—to actually have a purpose, creating a connection to others and life. We don’t need relief for discomforts but a purpose for the discomforts.
 
In the words of Frankl, “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him” (Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl).

​My Life has Meaning

​I don’t know the meaning of life; I do know my life has meaning. My goals of deepening spirituality, research and grappling with unanswerable existential questions of existence (coming to know certain truths about the world and accepting the unknowables) has given meaning and purpose. My connections to adult children in their various stages of struggle and success gives me meaning and purpose. 

My ruminations can’t save a child from struggling or force different action, but I can love and compassionately accept. My loving wife and her supporting connection gives life meaning and purpose. These are the things that renew my appreciation for life. My mind delights in human kindness, the beauties of nature, and the fascinating feelings of the body. “…nothing invests life with more meaning than the realization that every moment of sentience is a precious gift.” (Steven Pinker; the Blank Slate)
 
Life in all its splendid wonders holds more meaning than a life time of exploration will ever discover. We connect with life in openness to allow meaning to continually flow through souls, brighten our minds and create lasting connections with the world and its inhabitants. This is the meaning of life.
T. Franklin Murphy
T. Franklin Murphy
Wellness. Writer. Researcher.
​T. Franklin Murphy has a degree in psychology. He tirelessly researches scientific findings that contribute to wellness. In 2010, he began publishing his findings.


​Books Referenced in this Article:
Psychology Definitions Data Base Link
Personal Development. A Flourishing Life Society article data base link
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Internal Link: Flagship article. Ten Beacons of Light.
Emotion article database
Defense Mechanisms. Flourishing Life Society article link
Flourishing Life Society Link. Emotional Fitness
Psychology of Wellness Banner link to Flourishing Life Society articles
Relationships article data base link
Human Flourishing. Flourishing Life Society article link

​Other Flourishing Life Society articles of interest on this topic:

Logotherapy. A psychological definition of logotherapy. Article link
Living a Virtuous Life. A Flourishing Life Society article link
Death Instinct. Sigmund Freud's Death Drive Hypothesis. A Flourishing Life Society article image link
Life, Pain, Sorrow, and Joy. A Flourishing Life Society article image link
Developmental Tasks. Flourishing Life Society article link
We get stuck in an existential funk, searching for meaning. Life may not readily appear meaningful; but we can give life meaning.
FLS Link. Experiencing Awe: Experiences of awe promote pro-social behavior and invite psychological development. The wise find awe in the awesomeness of life.
Flourishing Life Society article link. Nine Pillars of well-being
Learning comes from more than pages in a book. Living knowledge must be experienced, converting words into actions.
Life Transitions. The psychology of major life event. A Flourishing Life Society article image links
Biologically driven to chase pleasure, we avoid pain; but modern society evolved quicker than our biological systems could adapt. We must measure impulses first for effectiveness.
Truth is elusive. What is proven today may be challenged tomorrow. We need a different approach that allows for confidence in action without a closed mind to possible alternatives.
Eudaimonia: Living Well and Doing Good. A Flourishing Life Society article link
Natural Laws of Life. Article link
Life Course Theory. A psychology definition article link
FLS link. Posttraumatic Growth: Significant traumatizing events destroy our stable view of the world. From these ashes, growth is possible. We get back up, re-examine our world, adjust our expectations and move forward, a little wiser and stronger. We grow in response to the trauma.
Autobiographical Memories. A Psychology Definition of Autobiographical Memories. A Flourishing Life Society article link
Books, conferences and education are wonderful; but deeper wisdom comes from grander sources.
FLS link. Passionate Purpose. We need passionate purpose to energize our flat lives, giving fire to existence and joy to routines.
Shattered Assumptions. A Psychology definition link
Flourishing Life Society article link. A Meaningful Life
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