My Search for Meaning

Do you ever wonder why we live? What’s the meaning of life? Is there anything more to life than getting up in the morning, drinking coffee, going to work, and sleeping? Sometimes, life seems so devoid of meaning, so empty. We look for reasons to live, we try to define life, to make some sense out of it. Like a person ready to drown we desperately look for something to cling to. I’ve been searching for a long time. Soon, I realized it is a never-ending quest. But, in my search I saw two patterns of answers popping up: ‘Reach god’, ‘Serve others’. I somehow could not accept the both. I don’t believe that god created us so that we can find him again. I don’t think we are playing hide & seek with him. Neither do I feel serving others is the meaning. How will serving others make me happy? A noble notion, no doubt, but incomplete. Then what is the purpose of my existence? What’s unique about my life?

For a long time I thought there would be some sacred scroll with answers, in some distant land which when I find, will open the otherworldly realms to me, and suddenly it’ll dawn upon me why I exist. Wish that was true. But, I realised soon there can be no such thing. For if there was any, it would have been discovered by now. For all are looking for answers. I continued my search. And, one day I found a different perspective on the ‘supposed’ meaning of life, in a book – ‘Man’s search for meaning’ by ‘Viktor Frankl’ – which made sense to me and which has since then become my philosophy and determined my outlook towards life.

Some insights from the author:

Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, everyone is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible… Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual… Man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes – within the limits of endowment and environment – he has made out of himself.

Meaning of life differs from man to man, from day-to-day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. What is demanded of him is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaninglessness in rational terms.

I realised life’s a blank slate, with no guiding philosophy to dictate what one needs to do with life and that we are free to choose our destiny – what we want to do and what we want our lives to mean. With this in mind I tried to figure out what I wanted to do in life? I started with some questions:

• What would I do if I had all the time in the world and no financial problems to worry about?
• What do I love doing?
• Doing what, do I lose track of time?
• Doing what, do I feel accomplished? What gives me the sensation of ‘I-did-what-I’m-supposed-to-be-doing’?

After days and hours of brainstorming and soul-searching I found the answers to the above. But, this question set felt incomplete. Something else was missing. Will self-actualization alone give meaning to my existence? But, how will it have mattered to others? Why should someone care if I ever existed? That’s when another question popped up in my mind:

• How will my life have mattered to others? What difference does it make if I live or die? Who’ll miss me if I die (other than my family and friends)?

The answer was ‘no one’. But, I wanted a legacy. How? I went back to the same man. And, found this:

Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself–be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself–by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love–the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

Then I asked myself:

• Can I share what I love with the world? Can I use my passions make a difference in others lives?

This is where I am in right now. Trying to figure out if I can make a difference. And, I like to believe I can (this blog is a direct result of that).

I like to believe we all are here for a purpose, that we all have a story to tell – the one we are living. And happiness, is a by-product of living our calling, of dedicating our lives to a cause larger than ourselves. And, life is all about finding ourselves and then losing ourselves in others.

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”

The reason I shared my journey today is to encourage all my readers to start their journey. It is never too late and it is far better to live our dreams in some capacity than to look back at our lives from our death-bed and regret.