The age-old question: What is the meaning of life? Many traditions have answered this question, and there are doubtless many valid answers. This post is about one such answer.
I just finished reading a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. It is written by a psychiatrist who become a Holocaust concentration camp prisoner. He believes that, “everyone’s situation is unique. No two situations will ever be the same.” I think what he means, for example, is things like, no one else will ever be your parent’s eldest child. That’s a unique situation. He then takes that further and says that in every person’s unique situation, the universe is asking that person a question, and that question is something that only that person in their unique situation is suited to answer. The question is a challenge to rise up and take responsibility for something. When you take responsibility, that is when you find meaning.
In all humility (who am I to contradict what this guy has gone through…), I struggle with this answer. If taking responsibility was all that was required, I feel like I have taken responsibility. I have a wife, children, I’m an employer, I care for others in my family — I have taken responsibility, yet I struggle still with this question. Many people have judged me for it by saying, “You have a wife and children, what more can you need?” Perhaps that should have been enough. But upon further contemplation, I think it is enough within a given domain. Everyone has multiple domains in their life – their family, their work, their spirituality, etc. You can take responsibility in one domain, but that doesn’t mean that the meaning you found in that singular domain is necessarily expansive enough for all the domains of your life.
Here’s the important part though: Having meaning in one domain of your life is enough, if you let it be.
Being a guy who cares about being precise with his language, I turned to the dictionary. What is meaning? Meaning is (a) implied or explicit significance, (b) important or worthwhile quality; purpose. Significance is “the quality of being worthy of attention; importance.”
When something is significant, it is because we value or prize it more highly than other things. If we think something is important, then that means we think other things are less important. So, what meaning do people intrinsically, innately have? In other words, what is the basis for the significance of a person? What is that value derived from or in relation to.
So what do we value in people? I sat down and started making a list of things that I valued, and a theme became clear. When I am talking about things that have meaning – things that I value – what I am really saying is, “What matters to me? What matters to other people?” When you phrase the question like that, it’s much easier to identify the things that matter to you.
When I think about things that matter to me, you know what doesn’t matter? Work. I could care less for the rat race that corporate America tries to trap you in. But what does matter to me? My paycheck does matter. It matters because it meets my family’s needs. In this way, I have a deep sense of responsibility. Being present and a provider for my family is important to me. In this way, Viktor Frankl’s path to meaning is true.
To me, it’s not enough to just have affection to another if you are not helping to meet their needs as well. I can tell a starving man I care for him, but if I don’t give him food, then all the well-wishes in the world won’t mean anything to him. A meal would mean much more to him. In a less extreme way, my children expect me to meet their material needs. A friend expects me to meet their psychological needs – someone to listen to them. A boss can meet his employee’s needs. All of these things matter, and I am aware of my responsibility towards these things. And one of the beautiful things is, when I fulfill my responsibility, I have the opportunity at the same time to give someone meaning – to show them that they matter to me.
By imparting meaning to others, we provide the Tylenol to each other for the pain along the way, especially the pain we experience when we are engaged in voluntary suffering for future gain.