Many people ask questions about the meaning of life. This topic begins to interest a person from adolescence. There are many philosophical works on this topic, but many of them contain contradictory information. It so happened that humanity has not yet found a single, universal answer to the question: “What is the meaning of life?” But this means only one thing - the search for meaning continues, and everyone does it on their own. But why? Few people can answer this question clearly, but everyone needs meaning. Let's look at this topic and try to answer - why still look for the meaning of life, and how to find it.
Why look for the meaning of your life?
What if your meaning in life is to be truly happy? Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl thought about this. He founded logotherapy, a therapy designed to help people find meaning in their lives.
In his opinion, a person must seek and find the deepest meaning of his existence in order to flourish.
Frankl observed that his patients suffered primarily from an enormous existential emptiness—a source of anxiety and depression.
- 8 Ways Modern Society Causes Existential Emptiness
In his book Unlocking the Meaning of Your Life, he explains that “existential emptiness can have several aspects. The search for meaning in life is sometimes replaced by a search for power, including the desire to earn more and more money. In other cases, it is replaced by the search for pleasure.”
Everyone on earth has a task, a purpose. We all have a freely chosen mission to complete. Moreover, the fact of feeling that you are useful is a source of satisfaction and therefore happiness! A person is happy when life has meaning.
Causes of emptiness
Getting lost in the labyrinths of life is not shameful; looking for meaning is not a shame, just like losing it. It seems to you that the whole point is in your passivity and apathy, but it also has roots. External factors of feeling the meaninglessness of life in a broad sense include:
- globalization and technologization of society;
- abundance of information;
- identification of work calling and life calling (read more about this in the article “Is it possible to see the meaning of life in work”);
- the collapse of old values and traditions of society without offering a new alternative (reminiscent of the situation in the 90s).
All this causes a person to fear being replaced by robots and technologies; The abundance of information from different sources and of different quality sows uncertainty in one’s own stability; the collapse of values prevents one from building one’s worldview.
What is the meaning of your life?
Maybe you're one of those people who doesn't believe you have a purpose or who believes life has no meaning. Or you don't see the point in achieving a higher goal.
So, ask yourself: what is the point of acting aimlessly? It's not about your job or daily responsibilities or your goals. It's about the real reason for your existence. The purpose and value of your life. This is the meaning of your life!
Let's say you have life goals: study, work, start a family, buy a house, go on vacation, and then retire. Inspiring?
Maybe you'll realize in your 40s, 50s, or retirement that you lacked global vision. Your current dissatisfaction may already be telling you that something is missing in your life. Or you're depressed and don't know why.
It's never too late to find the meaning of life. The sooner you realize this, the happier your existence will be.
Giving meaning to your life gives it direction. You can give meaning to your life by helping a neighbor, raising children, or pursuing a professional life. It doesn't matter how, as long as it's of the utmost importance to you.
Giving meaning to your life is used to determine exactly what you want. Avoid what you don't want and what doesn't give you pleasure. And above all, it helps to know why and how to get what makes you happy.
Unknown
And this leads to the unknown. In fact, you will need to really dig into the things you don't know, because they make up 99 percent of this issue. And there you can find quantum physics and Kabbalah. Here's how Michael Lightman combined these two themes: “There is a certain line beyond which a person is not capable of perception. This point between the tangible physical world and that which lies beyond perception is the meeting point of science and Kabbalah."
How is reality perceived from such a perspective? This is the point at which the whole world is within you. This gives you the ability to control it by changing your inner perception. Accordingly, the perception of the world is completely subjective, which means that you create your own reality when you understand that reality is a projection of yourself.
An Indian guy has built an electric bike: it can travel 50 km without recharging
Tender and fragrant. Steamed buns served under a cheese crust
Alena thought she had found the best nanny for her son. But she turned out to be a homewrecker
“Start living right away and consider each day a separate life”
Seneca
Abraham Maslow identified a set of needs that underlie all motivation, and therefore all action. He classified them into 6 categories:
- physiological needs (food, drink, sleep),
- need for security (housing, money),
- the need for achievement (development of one’s knowledge, values and potential),
- need for belonging (family, community),
- need for respect (feeling of being usefulness),
- the need to transcend oneself (invest in a cause that goes beyond oneself).
Needs and meaning
When the basic needs (physiological and safety) are satisfied, then the person seeks to satisfy other needs. Without a larger context, we are primed to respond to our physiological needs, safety, and belonging.
Goals need a larger context to be important and meaningful and to make us deeply happy. In fact, it is a context that includes self-esteem, achievement, and self-mastery.
The need for respect corresponds to recognition and self-confidence. In terms of need for achievement, it means that a person is working towards realizing his or her own potential.
Finally, the need to surpass oneself implies the renunciation of one's own needs associated with reasons external to oneself.
According to Maslow, a fully developed person will be guided by values that transcend his or her personality while serving others.
Why don't you want to do anything?
Apathy - how to deal with it if you don’t want to do anything
The lack of desire to do anything, change one’s existence for the better, or find opportunities for self-improvement and personal growth indicates that the individual is in a state of crisis.
As a rule, adults already have everything: a job, an apartment, a family, children. People are designed in such a way that achievements and victories give them a thirst for new successes and discoveries. This is due to the fact that they cause a storm of positive emotions and bring the soul into a state of euphoria. When everything is there, it is difficult to choose a new goal, the achievement of which would again cause a positive emotional surge.
In addition, each new goal should be more significant and significant than the previous one. This means that difficulties may arise in the process of achieving it, and it is not yet known whether the individual will be able to cope with them. If he cannot, then failure, ridicule from others and self-flagellation await him. Unlike self-confident young men, adults have been burned more than once, so they tend to doubt their abilities. Low self-esteem and personality complexes explain the fact that people make a completely reasonable choice: it is better to do nothing than to fail what they started.
Context and meaning
Thus, there are 2 types of context that give meaning to goals: necessity and purpose (meaning in life). If you have no purpose in life, then you are stuck in a limited context of need.
Your life is only about physical and emotional survival. And your motivation to set and achieve goals will wane as you achieve them. Which will lead you to dissatisfaction and depression.
The context of purpose goes beyond need satisfaction and is essential to happiness. It coexists with and exceeds needs-based goals. Because there is more to life than just meeting your physical, emotional and personal needs.
How to find the meaning of life
There are different methods to find the meaning of your life, your purpose, your mission. All methods are more or less similar. But these two below are simple and actually work. In addition, they complement each other and therefore make it easier to achieve the goal.
Find the meaning of life with rational intelligence
This method is about using your mind and your logic, starting with your context. Here the context is all your beliefs about reality. To define your purpose, you start with the context of reality that you project onto yourself.
Starting with your current understanding of reality, your beliefs, where do you belong? This projection becomes your goal.
If you don't like the goal you get with this method, it's because you don't like the context it's based on. Redefine your context.
Find meaning in your life with emotional intelligence
Take a blank sheet of paper or open a text document on your computer. Write “What is the true meaning of my life?”
Write the answer that comes to you. Think again and write a different answer. Repeat until you write an answer that makes you cry. This is your true purpose in life.
It takes 15-20 minutes to get rid of the social conditioning that forces you to somehow see the purpose of your life.
You will formulate “false responses” that evoke a little emotion and reflect part of your goal. When you start getting answers like this, keep going, you're almost there. When you find your purpose, you will know. It will resonate deeply with you and you will feel incredible energy.
Use both methods
You can use both methods. Your rational intelligence and your emotional intelligence may have different words about your goal, but overall they will go in the same direction.
If not, it means that your context is not clear and that you are seeing reality rationally on the one hand and emotionally on the other.
Your goal may end up seeming abstract and lofty. This is fine. The next step is to divide it into several goals, projects and actions.
- How to make a life plan in 7 steps, and why you need it
Impact on personal life
And if you do not take any action to get out of the “squirrel wheel” and continue to work for someone else’s dream, you will not be a person in the full sense of the word. You will remain a slave, with the mindset of a slave, you will remain an animal, with the destiny to reproduce and die.
By the way, not everyone will be able to reproduce; no one has canceled natural selection , and you must first become worthy of a sexual partner.
And even if you are lucky by chance, you are dooming your children to slavery, since you will implant in their brains your slave thinking that you need to work, you need to survive, using 4% of your capabilities. And often going against yourself, against your deepest goals, against your soul, against your destiny.
There will be no realization of you as a person, there will be no quantum leap in development, you will forever remain at the bottom of the food pyramid of society, and will not even make an attempt to go higher. And in your next reincarnation you will find yourself in the same situation or even worse.
The following questions will not even occur to you:
Why am I living?
What is my purpose?
What is the meaning of my life?
At the end of the article I will answer these questions, what I found out for myself.
