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What is the meaning to life?
42.
There it is. Read no further. Douglas Adams has already provided the meaning to life in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and it turns out the answer is quantifiably the number 42.
Or not.
While Adam’s sci fi novel is humorous and entertaining, perhaps turning to the sage wisdom of Auschwitz survivor and renowned author, Viktor Frankl, is a more productive way to explore one’s search for meaning. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning has sold over 16 million copies and has been printed in 52 languages.
A psychiatrist before entering the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII, Frankl not only survived but brought a valuable insight into why some survived and others did not. His conclusion: finding meaning in one’s life even in the midst of suffering is possible and essential. His book (originally published in 1959) now provides a roadmap toward leading a more fulfilling and meaningful life for all who read it.
Not surprisingly, his guidance is still relevant today. If you or someone you love is depressed or despondent, they might just be in need of a meaningful life.
Frankl explains:
….I turn to the detrimental influence of that feeling of which so many patients complain today, namely, the feeling of the total and ultimate meaninglessness of their lives. They lack the awareness of a meaning worth living for. They are haunted by the experience of their inner emptiness, a void within themselves; they are caught in that situation which I have called the “existential vacuum.” (105-106)
…Meaning of life always changes, but it never ceases to be. According to logotherapy, 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. (111)
While words and phrases like “logotherapy” and “existential vacuum” might be outdated or unknown to us, the idea behind them is still relevant. Frankl’s existential vacuum might today be called existential depression. The existential vacuum is primarily evidenced through a sense of boredom-meets- purposelessness (think 24 year old vegging out in their parent’s basement with no direction and no hope of direction.) Declining mental health, in general, perhaps points toward a pervasive existential vacuum. Strange to say, we needed and need a wake up call to live life more fully and vividly. To me one of the side effects of the Covid years has been our growing awareness of our human emptiness; in one way it served as that wake up call.
Face it, many of us living in the developed nations were operating on automatic - work, home, sleep. Rinse and repeat. Following the latest fad or buying the latest gizmo might have been the goal of life. But I don’t believe that is so anymore. So many people are feeling the need for more substance, more worth, and more wholeness. So many are experiencing the dissatisfaction with a life on automatic. “What is my life’s purpose? Where can I find true meaning?” we ask.
These are important existential questions because they prompt us to look beyond the lives we have been living in search of something more. And in the searching and seeking we might just find meaning, purpose, and an abundant, vibrant life. Thankfully, Frankl among many others, provides a roadmap for how to do that.
Frankl establishes three central avenues to discovering meaning:
Creating a work or doing a deed
Experiencing something or encountering someone
Responding to unavoidable suffering ready to learn
Creating a work or doing a deed
Personally this path to discovery is my favorite because it implies I have agency to find meaning in my life. I can create. I can do a deed. Truth be told, these days I feel a great sense of meaning in my life; I can attribute part of that to my engagement with creativity. In just the past months alone I have been creating like crazy - writing Life Cheat Sheets, working on publishing my writings, redesigning the website for my business, creating curriculum for intense, short courses for Celestial Sound (my business), designing my small garden, making vocal music with a community choir, and generally letting my imagination take the lead over and over again.
I feel a great sense of purpose in these endeavors, much like I did in my career as an educator. I know that I have something to offer others that can help them live their lives just a bit better than before. I don’t need fame. I don’t even need all of my creative energy to have an audience. But I do need to and love to create. I believe that we all have a creative force within us that loves to bloom. It is this creative force that contributes to living a life of meaning. Find your creative energy and you also find your meaning.
Pause for a moment and check: what are you creating? how are you a creative being? what creative endeavors infuse meaning into your life?
“Doing a deed” taps into the heart of a related matter: involvement of the body itself in lending meaning to life. When you can do something, not so much for the sake of busyness as for the sake of lifting another, you do it meaningfully. Our bodies are made to do stuff. It’s pretty easy to get caught up in the thinking mind, isn’t it? Sometimes we value the brain valued disproportionately to the body. But when you get in the flow of doing, it just feels right.
So what does doing a deed look like? For me tending my garden, picking up Uber passengers and getting them to their destinations, and playing my gong at the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) and apartment hunting with my child qualify as doing deeds. I’ve been on the go but with purpose. The vegetable garden provides fresh veggies to my family while engaging my body. Uber driving gives me an opportunity to connect with others from around the community and the world. And playing my gong is the best deed ever: rebalancing others’ minds, bodies, and spirits as I strike the various mallets in endless ways on the responsive metal alloy. I feel gratified when I do such deeds; it’s why I keep doing them and one of the reasons my life holds meaning.
What deeds are you doing? In what ways do they bring a sense of meaning and gratification? Are there others deeds waiting for you? The payoff comes whether or not there is a paycheck when you feel meaning in your life.
Experiencing something or encountering someone
It could be argued that “duh! aren’t we always experiencing something or encountering someone?” True. True. And all of these moments have the potential to bring meaning to your life. It’s just that certain moments might really stand out for you: that transformative experience, unplanned but impactful, or that stranger or friend who said the right thing at the right moment to unlock a deep truth for you. Suffice it to say, Life Cheat Sheets is filled with examples of such experiences and encounters. Over and over I’ve received impactful realizations through my life experiences, for example. (Check out the series Lessons in Life School for more). As for encounters with others, sometimes it’s not even a person’s words that matter; it’s their very presence or their energy that creates the impact.
The key is to be consciously aware that your experiences and encounters have the potential to bring meaning to your life. Be alert and aware and open to this gift! After all, “meaning of life always changes, but it never ceases to be.” Allow yourself to be hopeful that meaning exists, even if you’ve not yet made sense of it. Think of these encounters like brush strokes on an impressionist painting - at close range there is no picture evident, only little brush strokes of color blending and layering. But back up just enough (enter awareness) and you will realize you are witnessing a beautiful garden scene. That is what it is to be consciously aware of how life experiences themselves and your encounters with others have the capacity to paint meaning in your life.
Reflect for a moment on a recent experience that brought meaning to your existence. Reflect for a moment on a chance encounter that served to wake you up or teach you something valuable. Is there someone you can think of who provided a significant piece to your puzzle of life?
Responding to unavoidable suffering ready to learn
Frankl is clear: there’s no reason to go looking for suffering to find meaning in life. But IF IT COMES, your attitude makes all the difference. Your attitude can render the suffering as meaningless or meaningful. This is what he observed in the concentration camp during WWII. Those who failed to see any meaning in life eventually gave up trying. But others, who possessed a different view managed to find meaning even in the camp, even in the crust of bread given or received.
The good news here is that you can consciously choose how you respond. Choice means agency. Choice means decisions are made one way or another. Even better than that, because we are always choosing, there is always the possibility for a new and different choice. So if you are suffering now, you can choose to find meaning in it or not. If you have suffered in the past, you can choose to find meaning in that or not. The opportunity is always present. In a large part, the writing I do in Life Cheat Sheets is designed to provide hope, perspective, and roadmaps to the love and learning available to you even in the midst of suffering.
When the challenges come, how often do you ask: what am I learning right now? What challenges or suffering have you experienced that brought meaning to your life? How are you responsible for your choices?
Accidents, illness, death, and loss in general, while unavoidable, do often steer our lives down one trajectory or another. When we are aware enough of who we are, what we are, and how we are always operating from choice, these moments provide meaningful opportunity in the wake of suffering. When we are aware of the presence of the divine in these struggles, then with grace and mercy, we can actually experience ourselves in wholeness and holiness.
Frankl says that “meaning of life always changes, but it never ceases to be.” It never ceases to be. Meaning is always present, even when it is invisible or dimly lit. Count on it. Look for it. Allow it. Create it. Encounter it. And don’t allow boredom, distraction, or the existential vacuum to convince your otherwise, for when you know life’s meaning you are grateful to be alive. The sun shines brighter. The food tastes better. You know that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May your meaning in this moment be known to you, appreciated by you, and benefit others around you.
Read More
Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006.
You can find all of my series in the archives:
Adulting 101 Coupons: A Gift from your Parents
Partnering 101: A Deep Dive into Leaving Kindly
Me-Time: Self-care in the time of Covid
Reasons for Hope
From Fog to Flow
With a Grateful Heart
Lessons in Life School
Life Cheat Sheets
Riffs on Wisdom Teachings
Author of Me Time: Self-care in a Challenging World. Available at Bookemon. (Click here for link)
Find more of my writing at GreenBaytoKorea.blogspot.com
Learn about my business at CelestialSoundGB.com
Locate me on Instagram @applebb09
All photos by © Brenda Brayko 2023 unless otherwise credited.