Weekly Wisdom – How Do I Create Meaning?

How do I create meaning?

What is meaning? We need an answer that is not just a definition, but outlines the actions that create meaning itself. I invite you to this generative answer (meaning that you can generate meaning). Meaning is an assessment, a judgment, accompanied by a full-body sensation that something has made you feel fully alive, that it matters to you deeply and contributes to the life and future that you want to live – or not.

Quote:
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

                                                                                           – Joseph Campbell

 

Design Perspective:

We want to know meaning so that we can create it, not just assess it or hope for it.

To find meaning is to explore, experiment, and to live and imagine possibilities in life. But what we are looking for is the aliveness that comes when something lands for you as fully resonant with who you are, with what you care about, and what kind of world and future you want to create and live. Who you want to be, and to be who you are. You find it inside, not from outer validation.

It is in choosing what we most deeply care about that we find meaning. This may be a long journey in itself, to listen to yourself, to your inner callings, to imagine the life that brings you fully alive so that you need or want no other. To discover and choose yourself. This is called in many traditions fulfilling your destiny – to be you, and nothing other. Campbell also wrote “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

To find your meaning and the actions to create it is the mission of a lifetime. To find your destiny and fulfill it. To find your deepest care and take care of it. To find meaning is not to find an answer that imprisons you, as it can change through your life journey, your learning, your becoming. Meaning is a permanent question life asks you every moment: what is most meaningful for you? It is a choice. It is an action.