When we go through our... day -to -day through
our day -to -day lives we're usually just too
busy finishing up the many items on our to -do
list from the basics of living like taking care
of some you know personal hygiene getting access
to basic necessities like food and water completing
at least the minimum for work school whatever
else we're committing ourselves to When we aren't
busy fulfilling our responsibilities, we are
usually consuming something as a way of enjoying
or maybe escaping life, whether it's social life,
buying something shiny and new, obsessing over
some celebrity gossip. I don't know what you
do in your spare time. Just fill the blank here
with whatever it is that you do with your free
time, right? When we step back and ask what it's
all for, all these daily tasks and all the things
we do to occupy ourselves may start to seem fairly
meaningless, right? And all the things that we
get excited about just honestly in the long -term
perspective, like I'm talking like in considering
the entirety of your life or across generations,
a lot of the things that we tend to care about
doesn't seem... all that important when we take
this sort of bird's eye view? Am I really, for
instance, doing all this work just to do more
work, to buy more stuff, to continue existing,
all this to just die at some point? What's the
point of caring so much about, you know, the
latest fashion trend, let's say, when all these
trends eventually die and get resurrected at
some later point and we just go around and around
in a circle? Why have kids that'll eventually
have kids, all of them to just... go down the
inevitable path of just dying at some point,
right? What's the point of any of this? What's
the point of living, right? Now, some of you
might immediately respond to such a dreadful
kind of perspective and think that you have the
answer, that life is meaningful in the time that
you are living. That it's something about the
relationship that you have or the knowledge that
we build as a community or the way that you grow
and experience certain things and cultivate certain
virtues through your years. Surely my life feels
very meaningful, doesn't it? But that's exactly
the point. We believe lives at some, at least
some lives, maybe not all. We believe that. human
lives, to some degree, are meaningful. They're
worth living, right? But without reflection on
what it is that gives life meaning or, I don't
know, maybe a sense of purpose, we are doing
nothing more than just spewing feelings or vibes,
which may be true, but may also just be mere
delusions we created for ourselves to keep ourselves
going every day, right? there's a real possibility
that our life is meaningless, that it's nonsensical.
We may have felt that way at times, and we do
things to turn away from it and give our life
meaning, right? I mean, look, you wouldn't have
goals unless you thought that there was a reason
to have those goals, that those goals meant something
to you, right? But what happens when... All those
goals no longer exist. It leaves you wondering
why it is that we find lives meaningful and meaningless
at times, and sometimes in ourselves and sometimes
in others. Why we might say that some people's
lives were more meaningful than others. And I'm
guessing that the answer to these questions matter
to you since you're the one who's living this.
meaningful or meaningless life. That there's
a difference between the meaningful and meaningless
life becomes fairly evident when you play the
comparison game, right? Like, look, I'm thinking
of like certain kinds of lives that, you know,
when I look at it, I try not to be judgy, but...
It's hard for me to see certain lives as particularly
meaningful. Like I'm thinking of lives specifically
like the following, right? Like a person who
spends all day doing nothing except watching
endless reruns of terrible, terrible soap operas
and eating Hot Pockets and Cheetos. Only to eventually
die without any relationships, without any meaningful
impact on the larger world. Maybe they just didn't
even work, right? They didn't engage with other
people. They just... They were just living off
of some trust fund that was left on their behalf.
Or I'm also thinking of a person who dedicated
their life to what might seem like a meaningful
cause, let's say like cancer research and wanting
to develop a cure for cancer. And they pursued
this at the cost of relationships, at the cost
of other sorts of pursuits that other people
might have had, only to find that their research
did not pan out. I'm not just talking like, look,
they didn't find a cure, but then they developed
all kinds of interesting techniques that were
later used for... I'm not talking like that.
Their research produced absolutely nothing. It
didn't rule out certain possibilities. It didn't
help develop some important information that
was used later on. They didn't contribute to
the overall body of scientific knowledge on cancer.
They just... It just had zero impact, right?
I mean, there's something about that life that
seems fairly meaningless to me, right? I'm guessing
they, the person themselves, might have questioned
their life goals. They did all they could. They
pursued something that they thought was meaningful.
And at the end of the day, they have absolutely
nothing to show for it. And then they might start
asking themselves the question, why did I do
all this? Why did I waste all this time and energy?
only to produce absolutely nothing. I'm thinking
of the kind of people who, you know, let's say
they think that they're impacting the world with
their Instagram stories, only to have, I don't
know, maybe zero followers, or maybe the followers
they have do absolutely nothing except doom scroll
all day, so they aren't really, like, didn't
have any impact on their lives or didn't move
them to do anything. Each of these lives that
I'm describing, you know, I'm assuming, like,
look, they themselves might be wanting a meaningful
life, right? But I'm assuming that people who
want to really have a meaningful life would not
want these sorts of lives, generally speaking.
And it's important for us to kind of reflect
on why it is that we find some of these lives
to be fairly empty. You know, it becomes clear
that we do have some standards for what constitutes
a meaningful life, that it's not just whatever
you yourself find meaningful makes it a meaningful
life, right? You could argue that each of these
people may have found something that they valued
in what they were doing, but something about
their life seems to be missing something important,
right? It seems to matter. Like, forget what
you think about your own life, right? It seems
to matter whether or not a person's life has
some sort of impact on the world or others or
themselves, right? It has some sort of impact,
right? Like, zero impact seems to be a bad thing,
seems to take away something meaningful about
that person's life. Similarly, forming deep,
meaningful relationships seems to matter. Not
the danger of being circular here, right? But
look, relationships of a certain kind seem to
not be all that meaningful, right? What kind
of relationship am I thinking? I'm thinking of
the online ones with complete strangers that
you don't share anything deep or personal about
yourselves with. It's just a person that you
regularly chat with about, I don't know, the
day. You have small talk and then, you know.
That's it. Doesn't seem all that meaningful.
But deep relationships, as you forge with friends
that are intimate, with family members, with,
you know, romantic partners, right? These seem
to carry a kind of weight that other relationships
don't. You might even think that developing yourself
in some ways, not devolving, wasting your ability
by just watching soap operas and eating Cheetos
all day, that seems to matter. These things seem
to matter. Look, more importantly, is that I'm
not sure if humans are designed to live a meaningless
life. The very idea that you are fine with just
living a meaningless life honestly would raise
a lot of questions, at least for me, about your
mental health. I would wonder whether you have
certain kinds of experience that has sucked the
life out of you, right? Like the animating force
within you is just dead, right? There's something
about... A life that is wanting to wake up, face
challenges, do something with the day, care for
others, make an impact, right? Like develop something,
be useful. These things all seem to be part of
what makes life worth living. And people who
don't find any sort of desire to do any of that.
It sounds like depression. I'm not going to lie.
It sounds kind of like depression. It sounds
like there's probably a lot of deep -seated something
going on that needs to be worked through, maybe
in therapy, or maybe it's a medical thing. I
don't know. But a life that you don't find any
meaning in, honestly, it just doesn't seem like
a life that you yourself would find worth living.
So what do I mean by talking about all this?
What am I trying to get at? I'm trying to get
at the following, right? Which is, look, we all
want to live meaningful lives. And if we're not
lying to ourselves and to others, it does seem
as if they're in the background, maybe not explicitly,
maybe not something you thought about and reflected
on, but in the background, there's at least something
that is guiding your decision -making to formulating
you know, a life for yourself, creating a life
for yourself that you yourself find to be meaningful,
right? And if you don't actually reflect on it,
then you're just going around doing stuff. You're
just trying things out. I find that, you know,
people are wanting to find meaning in their lives.
I think it's a hard thing to do. And I think
it's made even harder when you're flying blind,
when you don't know what it is that you're doing
and you're just trying stuff out. And you're
letting whether or not it feels good in the moment
dictate whether or not you decide it's meaningful.
I think when we slow down, take a step back,
and start looking at not just our own lives,
but the many lives that are lived. and we start
seeing a continuity in what we find to be the
kind of lives that you might want to emulate
for yourself, the kind of lives you want to serve
as a guiding light for what kinds of things,
at least in theory, what kinds of things you
want to accomplish for yourself, you begin to
gain greater clarity on your own life and what
makes your own life meaningful. I imagine that
there are a lot of commonalities for most people.
Maybe not in substance, but in terms of the general
framework for what makes life meaningful. But
I also find that when we don't have these discussions
out loud, because we want to let everybody find
their own meaning, right? Then I think we lose
something. We lose our ability to be able to
gain clarity for ourselves. on what it is that
we really do find meaning in. We lose clarity
on our own purpose. So I hope that we can have
this sort of discussion out loud, and not from
a place of judging one another, but rather as
a way for us to kind of explore alongside one
another the very things that seem to build a
meaningful life for ourselves. And to take from
others' experience and, you know, the things
that drive them, the things that they pursue,
the things that, you know, bring them some sort
of deeper joy or a sense of content or whatever
else it might be, that you at least start to
have a little bit more clarity for yourself on
how it is that you want to shape your life to
becoming the kind of life that you, you know,
want to wake up every day and want to live.