What I’ve realized
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." - Viktor Frankl
Having meaning matters
It’s a hard truth to swallow when you realize you’ve spent most of your life in a meaningless manner. Now, there is a major difference between your life being meaningless (this is not true and can’t be changed) and not living meaningfully (this can be changed). Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor wrote the above truth which became his way of making it through the concentration camps alive.
My definition of meaning is having an essential understanding of what matters most to you in a way that provokes you to live your life by those things. My thinking comes from both reading Frankl’s work as well as my own experience.
For most of us, we don’t have the unforeseen gift of deep suffering to make us brutally ask ourselves what has meaning and why it matters. Or maybe we do but we bubble wrap our lives in a way that is able to ignore and escape the absolute necessity to be brutally honest with oneself to find meaning. I’ve had a mix of both.
After years of living based on others’ opinions, consuming flashes in a pan through social media, news, and accumulating material wealth, I realized that meaning is the true north on the compass that is our life. This subtle realization came in the summer of 2020 when I was unemployed, depressed, and isolated with nothing but time on my hands in my tiny New York apartment. I finally broke and was the most honest with myself I’ve ever been. I went into the dark abyss of my soul and started to ask what really mattered. I sat with myself long enough to realize what I believed (or didn’t believe) about my life. I started realizing and finding my meaning while also creating habits that ruthlessly eliminated distraction and hurry. I started to stop and ask myself if the matter or situation at hand is urgent (which, it rarely is). It was painful and still is.
Practically, I went through a self-directed AA-esque program to change my relationship to my phone (bye-bye social media and notifications). I changed my sleeping and eating habits. I started building a routine in my life that helped me do what I needed to when I needed to do it. In essence, I was becoming awake to my entire life and every part that it was made of.
Most of us don’t realize this because we live in a constant reaction to others’ actions, thoughts, and beliefs. We’re distracted; Simply wanting to seek pleasure and comfort. We all struggle with this to varying degrees.
Frankl speaks to this again, stating "When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure" and as James Finley says, “the non-essential always imposes itself, the essential never imposes itself”.
Your ability to find what means the most to you and give your time, focus, and attention to it determines how well you live. If we never got further than realizing how deeply we believe this for ourselves and our own life, then that would be enough. That’s meaning.
Stay open
The second truth that most people don’t realize that contributes to how well we live is how open you are. I don’t mean open in the context of one’s willingness to consider things but rather one’s ability to accept and appreciate what happens in life. I speak to this in my first published article.
As humans, we are conditioned to be closed off but it’s not natural. Why is it that every time I see a child, I’m stopped? Immediately filled with wonder and love as this pure presence of innocence is just being a human being. We suddenly become amazed, bewildered, and curious in a manner that instantly gives ourselves to the moment and sees it for what it is. Not judging and seeing everything and everyone with innate value. Never arriving, and seeing everything as integrated and interdependent on each other. It’s in this state that we are our truest form. Instead of spending time critiquing, judging, separating, and closing off, we are free to appreciate, love, accept and give ourselves to each moment.
So, some examples of things that don’t matter are: getting upset because you have to wait an extra 5 minutes due to a delay, obsessing over celebrity facts, hinging your self-worth on your Instagram likes and followers, spending precious time keeping up with the latest trends, chasing money or fame, or letting the news confirm your biases. What does matter is who you are becoming, the way your life affects those around you, and pursuing truth for the sake of freedom. Your ability to be open to life for what it is, determines how well you live.
Why realizing these two things important
They will change the depth of quality in which you live. I’m the freest, true self I have ever been. I am able to wake up each day and know what I’m doing and why. And when inevitable situations arise that I do not know, I am able to appreciate them and respond in an open manner that lets it change me for the better. The hows of life will come and go, your openness to them helps deepen your understanding of your why. If you’ve never questioned these ideas, just know, you’re worth it and it’s worth it.
