Finding Meaning
Like us all I’ve watched in stunned silence the terrible devastation that the fires in California have brought to its people in the last week. Most humbling was watching as people returned to their once loved homes, hoping to find some remnants of their lives, and instead finding only ash.
With the overindulgence of Black Friday, Christmas and January Sales all fresh in our minds, I reflected as I watched whole communities reduced to debris, what any of it really meant. We put too much value in stuff. Then we tire of it and throw it away, not getting the irony that there is no ‘away’. There’s land fill, waste in our water, fumes in our environment, but here is no away. It just stops being our problem when it’s not in our sphere, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
I keep trying to remind myself that I’ve got enough stuff and yet felt slightly embarrassed by the number of parcels the Evri guys dropped at my door or threw over my fence over the last month. I know life is about more than stuff. And even if it wasn’t, I’ve got quite enough ‘stuff’ and so does everyone I know. We genuinely don’t need any more.
I want my life to mean more than the possession I own. And I bet those Californians finding only ash weren’t even hoping to find shoes, or bags. They cried openly on TV about their photos, trinkets and insignificant things that no insurance company could ever replace.
The people of California, finding very little stuff, will now be relying on something much bigger. Something that can’t be reduced to smithereens in a matter of hours. Slightly adapting the words of the Grinch…
What if Meaning, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Meaning perhaps means a little bit more?
Back in February 2017 I had a brain aneurysm and was really poorly for some time with my life hanging in the balance for some 9 days until a successful surgery could be performed. My recovery was arduous, and it was never predicted that I would get everything back. My speech, memory, movement, coordination, comprehension – they had all vanished in the early days.
Gratefully, as you can tell, I got it all back. Well, mostly.
In the weeks and months of recovery that followed, I was lucky enough to have the support of my wonderful family and friends. One day while in a conversation with two of my best friends of more than 20 years, we got talking about my funeral – the one I never had, but the one they had feared was on the horizon.
I don’t know how humbling I found this conversation at the time, but I reflect on it now with a lump in my throat. While I was in the in-between, they had contemplated how busy my funeral would be. How many people would have good things to say about me. How they considered that my life had included so much meaning, I’m sure due to a variety of things, but mainly thanks to a then almost twenty-year career in the charity sector.
As with any brush with death it can lead people to contemplate their own mortality, and so my friends who worked in a very different sector, had considered how their lives would be viewed had they been the one in the box. They felt it wouldn’t have been so busy, not as many stories could have been shared.
Now, whether true or not in either case, it stunned all three of us into silence as we contemplated what matters when we reach the last day of our lives. To be clear, I don’t mean what matters to those grieving us. I mean what matters about how we led our lives. About how we spent our time. About how we impacted those around us.
Did I consider that my life had meaning then – I honestly can’t remember. Do I consider that it does now? 100%!
Before I was ever unwell, I had read the novella by Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich published in 1886. It tells the story of a judge in nineteenth century Russia, who falls off a ladder and over the course of the story ends up on his deathbed. One of his final moments of clarity as his wife sits by his bedside, a wife who doesn’t really love him, and he doesn’t really love her, he looks at her and says, ‘What if my whole life has been wrong?’ He falls back into unconsciousness and dies soon after. It was the last words he ever uttered. Perhaps the last thought he ever had.
Before my brush with death, reading these words had been impactful, but when I reread them during my recovery, they shook me to my very foundations. I committed that my life would have meaning, and I held myself accountable to that oath at every opportunity.
What does Meaning mean I hear you ponder. Well, that is entirely up to you. I decided what meaning was for me and those are shoes that probably won’t fit anyone else. And so, I set you the task of working out what ‘meaning’ is for you.
What I know for sure is that if I was to die tomorrow, I’m okay with what I have contributed during my time on the tiny blue dot. I also understand though that my contribution isn’t done yet and so it’s a bar I must reach for day after day, week after week, so that I can arrive at my death satisfied that I lived every single breath of my life. That how I lived mattered. That my impact on the world and those I walked my path with was of value.
DEFINITION
What is the meaning of life?
In positive psychology, meaning in life refers to finding a sense of purpose and understanding that makes one's life significant. It involves contributing to something larger than oneself and experiencing personal growth.

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