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PRINCIPLE 3. Detect the Meaning of Life’s Moments
Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!1 (V. Frankl)
It is not the meaning of life per se that is important; rather, it is the search for meaning in your own life that is important. Meaning is different for everyone—there is no one right answer; there is only the answer that is right for you. However, the search for meaning in our own lives often seems like such a large undertaking. Where do we begin? Making this task more manageable is the subject of this chapter in which we introduce the third principle of Frankl’s work: detecting the meaning of life’s moments.
FINDING MEANING
We don’t create meaning—we find it. And we can’t find it if we don’t look for it. Sometimes it looms large in our lives; sometimes it slips in almost unobserved. We might miss a meaningful moment entirely, until days, months, or even years later when what once seemed insignificant is revealed as a pivotal, life-changing moment. Or it might be the collective meaning of many moments that finally catches our mind’s eye, as if we weave together a living quilt from moments that by themselves passed unnoticed. Although we are not always aware of meaning, Frankl would say that it is present in every moment, wherever we go. All we have to do, in daily life and at work, is to wake up to meaning and take notice:
The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as if it were a closed system.2 (V. Frankl)
We cannot answer the big question about the meaning of our own life unless we discover answers to the smaller ones: What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What does this relationship mean? What does our work mean? Every day our lives are rich with meaningful answers, but only when we stop long enough to appreciate meaning will it bloom in our lives. We have to be in touch to detect and know meaning, but most of the time we are on our way somewhere else, caught up in the frenzy of work or personal challenges. If we don’t stop to search out and be mindful of our own existence, meaning will recede to an impossible dream. Our entire lives are rich with meaning, and therefore everything we do has meaning. We are free to make decisions out of love for whatever is in our hearts. When we stop to look at the reasons for our decisions, we will find meaning. Taking time to reflect on the meaning of each of life’s moments is the first step to opening ourselves to the deeper overall meaning of our individual lives.
Unfortunately, not everyone takes the time or makes the effort to find meaning in life’s moments. Take Michelle, for example, who had recently celebrated her fiftieth birthday but was not quite ready to admit that she had reached the half-century mark. She was dreading facing her journey into the next few decades, including retirement. She was not happy and not inclined to celebrate anything in her life. Twice divorced and the single mother of two Generation Xers, Michelle felt that her personal life left much to be desired. Her work life was unsatisfying as well. Since her last marriage had ended, Michelle had been unable to hold any kind of steady employment. Whenever she did find a worthwhile job, it seemed to sour quickly. Over and over, Michelle found herself stressed at work, for some reason that had nothing to do with herself—a poor boss, lazy coworkers, an unclear job description, lack of support, and so on. Consequently, she was never satisfied with her work situation. She never imagined that she could find meaningful work.
At work and at home Michelle was consumed by a need to put out fires, leaving little in reserve for determining the root causes of her suffering. As she grew increasingly depressed over her life situation, Michelle externalized the reasons for her plight, which hardened into a fixed habit. Oblivious to her own role and responsibility as co-creator of her miserable reality, she effectively had lost touch with the meaning of life’s precious moments because she was too busy complaining about what life was doing to her. In her mind, life had dealt her a bad hand, so there was nothing to do but bear the suffering and complain loudly enough so everyone around her—family, friends, coworkers—would hear her cries of anguish. “The meaning of it all is that there is no meaning,” said the golfer Walter Hogan in the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance. Michelle would agree with this statement, for the search for meaning had no value to her. Her life seemed meaningless and would continue to seem meaningless—unless some sort of miracle came her way. By giving up on her search for meaning, Michelle had chosen to take an early retirement from life.
In contrast, let’s consider Adam, who wrote to us after reading an earlier edition of Prisoners of Our Thoughts and applying the book’s principles in response to a major life and work transition. After thirty years as a corporate engineer, Adam found himself being transferred from a position he loved and moving to another area of the organization that literally had no work for him. The organization was undergoing many changes, and Adam feared that the move was simply a step toward being laid off, a step toward the door. Suddenly, his life had no meaning, and he suffered through months of self-pitying thoughts that held him prisoner. After reading the book, he began to look at his situation as an opportunity rather than a problem. As a result, Adam began to reinvent himself. Although he could not immediately change his circumstances, he could change his attitude toward how he perceived the situation. He could find a deeper meaning in it.
Gradually, as Adam’s attitude improved, so did his disposition, his outlook on life and work, and his progress toward a completely new type of personal fulfillment and professional success. He attributed much of this change in perspective and behavior to his newly found appreciation for the potential for meaning that exists in all of life’s moments, even those that are not particularly pleasant, welcomed, or expected. Adam realized that his former “poor me” thoughts would not resolve his predicament, and that he alone was responsible for discovering the seeds of meaning that existed in his life. Unlike Michelle, Adam assumed full responsibility for his situation, and he refused to take an early retirement from life by giving up on his search for meaning.
To find authentic meaning in our lives, we need courage, which is not the absence of fear but the willingness and ability to walk through the fear—to tread, if you will, into the darkness of life’s labyrinth of meaning. It is during the worst times, through hardship and suffering, that our courage is put to its greatest test. Consider the film Defending Your Life in which director/writer Albert Brooks plays Dan Miller, a successful business executive who delights in taking delivery of a brand-new BMW. Just as he is pulling out of the car dealership, he has the misfortune of crashing into a bus. Dan does not survive the accident and finds himself in the afterlife, in a heavenly way station called Judgment City. Here, Dan discovers that he must stand trial and justify his life in order to either advance to the next, higher plane of existence or be sent back to earth to repeat his life.
In a courtroom Dan is shown video clips of his life and asked to defend his actions, especially when fear was most evident. Here is a sample of the dialogue between Dan and his defense attorney, Bob Diamond (played by actor Rip Torn):
BOB DIAMOND: Being from earth as you are and using as little of your brain as you do, your life has pretty much been devoted to dealing with fear.
BOB DIAMOND: Everybody on earth deals with fear. That’s what little brains do.
. . .
BOB DIAMOND: Did you ever have friends whose stomachs hurt?
DAN MILLER: Every one of them.
BOB DIAMOND: It’s fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can’t get through that fog. But you lift it and, buddy, you’re in for the ride of your life.
As the Bob Diamond character explains, most people only use 3 to 5 percent of their brain’s potential, limiting themselves because of their fears. They can’t see past their fears, nor can they see the deeper meaning in the small moments of their lives, which robs them of experiencing the beauty and fullness of life. Many of us can relate to Dan Miller’s character and might even wonder what video clips would be shown at our own trial should we end up in Judgment City, having to defend our life!
Many people don’t want to explore the meaning of situations in which they find themselves, as shown in the example of Michelle and in Dan Miller’s character. More often than not, people fear what they might uncover, what they might have to address. They simply “can’t go there.” Many people do not want to confront their weaknesses, choosing instead to ignore them or, worse yet, to blame others. Some people choose to busy themselves with activities and diversions so that they don’t have to slow down and actually look at their own lives. Others simply don’t know what steps they should take to find this deeper meaning.
Existential Digging
As we’ve already mentioned, we can’t find meaning, even when surrounded by it, unless we look for it. Our “Existential Digging Exercise” provides an easy way to detect the meaning of life’s moments. Whenever you encounter an experience or situation that is especially challenging, or one that you would describe as a meaning moment in your personal or work life, ask yourself these questions:
1. How did you respond to the situation or life experience? What did you do and think?
2. How did you feel about the situation or life experience? What kinds of emotions were stirred up as a result of the experience or situation?
3. What did you learn from the situation or life experience? What new knowledge, skills, or attitude do you now possess because of the experience or situation?
4. How will you grow from the situation or life experience? How will you apply what you have learned from the experience or situation, especially key learning about yourself, for your personal development?
Dig deep for the insights from your experience. Review how you responded, how you felt, what you learned, and, most important, how you will grow from this experience.
By faithfully and authentically addressing these four levels of existential questions, we guarantee that you will engage in the systematic process of detecting the meaning of life’s moments. Obviously you cannot respond to the four questions for every moment of your life, but we highly recommend that you try to address situations or life experiences that really matter—or should matter—in your personal life and work life. These may be those moments that are (or were) especially positive, negative, challenging, and/or stressful for you. We also suggest that you maintain a journal or some other kind of record or diary so that you can periodically review your experiences and chart your progress in dealing with the meaning of life’s moments. Are you really growing and developing as a result of your learning from various life situations, or are you simply repeating old patterns of thinking and behavior? Do you recognize any common threads of meaning that may help you weave your unique tapestry of existence?
The Importance of Awareness
Everything comes down to awareness. It has been said that “it is more important to be aware than it is to be smart.”3 To be aware is to know meaning. To be aware takes time and effort. If our lives are dominated by too many activities or passive preoccupation with television, our smartphones, or the Internet, we lose out on the meaning that surrounds us. We must be aware—see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the world—to find the meaning in our lives.
All that is good and beautiful in the past is safely preserved in that past. On the other hand, so long as life remains, all guilt and all evil are still “redeemable.”. . . This is not the case of a finished film . . . or an already existent film that is merely being unrolled. Rather, the film of this world is just being “shot.” Which means nothing more or less than that the future—happily—still remains to be shaped; that is, it is at the disposal of man’s responsibility.4 (V. Frankl)
There are as many shades of meaning as there are colors. Nobody can determine meaning for someone else—detecting the meaning of life’s moments is an individual’s personal responsibility. Like it or not, if we are aware that we’re in a lousy job but we need to pay the rent, the job still has meaning. We needn’t resign ourselves to a lifelong lousy job, but there is meaning in the one we have right now. We just need to look for the meaning. If we dislike our boss because he or she is demanding and unappreciative, we can either be demanding and unappreciative right back or try to discover a life lesson in our predicament. Maybe the boss is trying too hard to succeed; maybe we’re hearing a parental voice from our past rather than that of the boss; maybe we have an opportunity to practice our diplomatic skills with a difficult person. Or perhaps we are in a job that is not right for us!
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes a case in which he met with a high-ranking American diplomat at his office in Vienna, presumably to continue psychoanalytic treatment that this person had begun five years earlier in New York City.5 At the outset Dr. Frankl asked the diplomat why he thought that he should undergo analysis—why it had started in the first place? It turned out that this patient had been discontent with his career and had found it difficult to comply with American foreign policy. His former analyst, however, had told him again and again that he should to try to reconcile himself with his father, because his employer (the U.S. government) and his superiors were nothing but father figures. Consequently, according to this analyst’s line of thinking, his dissatisfaction with his job was a result of hatred he unconsciously harbored toward his father.
For five years the diplomat had accepted this interpretation of his plight, and he became increasingly confused—unable to see the forest of reality for the trees of symbols and images. After a few interviews with Dr. Frankl, it was clear that the diplomat’s real problem was not a hatred for his father but that he longed to be engaged in another kind of work. In essence, his will to meaning was being frustrated. As a result of this insight, the diplomat decided to give up his profession and embark on another one, which, as it turned out, proved to be very gratifying. His anguish had been not because of his father but because of his own inability to choose work that had true meaning for him. As this example shows, if we allow ourselves to be aware of the many possibilities open to us, we open ourselves to meaning.
The more aware we are, the more likely we can start to see the patterns in our thoughts, words, and behaviors. We can start to see patterns in how we deal with work challenges. We can start to see patterns in how we deal with relationships. Through this connection we may come to realize that we are attracting the same kind of personal or romantic relationships over and over again, relationships that might be negative or even toxic and therefore not serving our highest good. We may come to realize that we have a habit of wanting to lash out at others or take revenge if they demand too much of us. We may realize that we only like to look at our side of the story instead of realizing that there are many sides to the same story. The more aware we are, the more likely we’ll begin to see patterns in how we approach our health. We may realize that we are not expressing our emotions, bottling up our anger, which leads to more stress. We may realize that our weight gain may be a result of stress and not specifically to do with the chocolate cake we ate last week!
The more we become aware of the moments in our life, the more we open ourselves to meaning. Many people define “meaning” as “significance” or “something that matters.” However, we define meaning as “resonance with our true nature or core essence.” When something feels significant, when we know that it matters, it is because it resonates with whom we truly are. For example, I (Elaine) traveled many times to the small villages of Greece and witnessed how the villagers live so simply and find great meaning in interacting with each other. I thought of all the “stuff” I had at home in America and wondered why I needed so much. As I reflected on these moments, my awareness grew. It wasn’t a question of being materialistic or antimaterialistic; it was a question of what role money and things should play in my life. I concluded that the ultimate goal was to find inner prosperity first and then layer on any materialism, as opposed to starting the other way round—embracing materialism and hoping one day to find meaning. Upon returning from one of these journeys, I decided to downsize, to unload some of the stuff with which I had surrounded myself. I chose, instead, to focus my journey on meaning. This meaning moment or meaning experience taught me to seek greater awareness and to live in a way that resonates with who I believe I am at the core.
It is life itself that invites us to discover meaning, and when we live with awareness, we express meaning in everything we do. Webster’s New International Dictionary lists more than twenty definitions for the word work and more than a hundred other terms or phrases that begin with the word work. But it’s the first definition, with its two small root words—to do—that illustrates the meaning of them all. Whatever we do has meaning, whether it’s a workout or a work of art.
Life retains its meaning under any conditions. It remains meaningful literally up to its last moment, up to one’s last breath.6 (V. Frankl)
Knowing why we do things, however, is essential and is the beginning of real freedom and meaning in our lives. If we delve deep enough, we’ll reach the two things that motivate us most: love and conscience. Frankl described these as intuitive capabilities: things we do without thinking, things that define us at our deepest level. “The truth,” he wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “is that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
It’s not always easy to trace where love and conscience come into play in our lives, but if we explore our decisions, they surface: We work nights so we can be with our kids in the morning and see them off to school. We grow vegetables organically to provide healthy food for the community. We operate a small business that offers employment to three people year-round in a difficult economy. We write poems to encourage family and friends. We consult with others to help them cope with stress. We teach sailing to inner-city kids. We manage a corporation with an emphasis on fair wages for workers abroad. We make quilts for families who are homeless. We work at a job we don’t love because it gives us money to do something we do love. We organize fundraisers to bring affordable housing to our community. We donate a thousand dollars to a local charity. We put a dollar in an outstretched hand. We build energy-efficient straw-bale houses. We wait tables so we can be onstage, raise our kids, feed our dog, or pay the light bill. It all comes down to love and conscience. When we see how our world is connected in this way, we can name the why and know deeper meaning.
Drafting Our Legacy
As your awareness grows, you can start to see patterns in the meaning in each moment. You can string together these insights to see the bigger picture of your life. You can see all of the roads you have taken, all of the stops you have made, all of the people you have encountered, all of the things you have done or experienced in your life. What are the most important, most meaningful things you have experienced? You can also project or envision what your life may be like in the future. Think about your life—past, present, and future. Now imagine if you were, say, a hundred years old, and you looked back at your entire life. What would you see? What did you accomplish? What impact did you have on others? In other words, what was your legacy? The most common definition of the word legacy, sadly, is “a gift of money or property, usually left to someone in a will.” When we refer to legacy, we are not referring to money. Rather, we are referring to something that is passed on from generation to generation—a lesson, an impact, a story, some wisdom—that enables a person’s life, in effect, to “live on” eternally.
Our powerful “Eulogy Exercise” is shown in Figure 1. A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially someone who has recently died. Since you will be writing your own eulogy, the objective of this exercise is for you to reflect on the meaning of the moments of your life and to determine how you would like to be remembered. What was important about your life, and what impact did you have on others? How did you make a difference in this world? In this exercise, fill in the blanks on the form and make sure that these final comments about you, to be recited at your funeral, are really what you want said!7 This unique opportunity allows you to write your own eulogy, so make sure that you incorporate the things that matter most to you. Did you live and work with meaning? Now assume that someone else wrote your eulogy. What would be different? Would others say the same things about you and your impact? Would others say that you lived and worked with meaning?
Figure 1. Eulogy Exercise.
Reflecting on your life and work through this exercise, you are able to detect what is most meaningful to you. The “Eulogy Exercise” asks you to see the big picture of your life, albeit still as a work in progress. You may or may not like what you see. Yet this exercise offers you the chance to consider your life’s ultimate meaning, as Frankl would say. Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs are, ultimate meaning is a metaphysical concept that has its roots and values in spiritual matters. In his introduction to The Doctor and the Soul, Dr. Frankl wrote: “Life is a task. The religious man differs from the apparently irreligious man only by experiencing his existence not simply as a task, but as a mission.” Viewing life as inherently meaningful and with unlimited potential requires a shift in consciousness. It requires responsible action on our part for, as Frankl pointed out, the potential for meaning that exists in each moment of life can only be searched for and detected by each of us individually. This responsibility, he wrote, is “to be actualized by each of us at any time, even in the most miserable situations and literally up to the last breath of ourselves.”8 By remaining aware of the need to detect and learn from the meaning of life’s moments, we ensure that we do not become prisoners of our thoughts. By focusing on meaning’s big picture, while simultaneously seeking to notice life’s meaning moments, our search for ultimate meaning begins and never ends.
Meaning Reflections
Imagine that you have written your autobiography—with details about your life and work—and it is now on the New York Times best-seller list. What is the title of your autobiography? Name and briefly describe the chapters in your autobiography. Who are the people included in your acknowledgments?
• What is the meaning you are detecting from reading this book?
• What type of existential digging do you do to unearth the meaning of life’s moments?
• How is your life or work like a mission versus just a series of tasks?
Meaning Affirmation
I will look for and find meaning in the various experiences of my life.