What is the meaning of Life for me?

What is the meaning of Life for me? How do I even answer that question? More importantly, how do I answer that question honestly?

How do I say what the meaning of Life is, without resorting to abstract mumbo jumbo or spiritual-sounding platitudes, statements that hide more than they reveal? Can I convey what Life means to me in terms that are concrete and real?

What is the Meaning of Life? (Besides being a Monty Python film...)

Why do I feel the need to have meaning in Life?

I wonder why it occurs to me in the first place to ask the question, "What is the meaning of Life?" From the popularity of books that purport to give an answer to the question, I see that I am not the only one who has wondered about it.

Why do we search for meaning? Here are two possible answers.

First, we could be the product of "intelligent design" (as Philip Johnson puts it). Some sort of divine mind could have created us for a purpose, and then designed us to desire to fulfill that purpose. Just as our brains are "wired" to seek food and sex, our brains could also be designed to crave a higher purpose for our lives, and to not be content until we are actively fulfilling that purpose.

Or second, we could have been produced by a "blind watchmaker" (as Richard Dawkins puts it). We might be the products of random genetic mutations, coupled with the all-important proving grounds of environmental threats and opportunities, which would serve to weed out detrimental traits (the predators would tend to catch the slowest runners, for example) and to encourage  helpful traits (the cleverest hunter catches more prey to feed her young). As a result of the ensuing natural selection, we developed brains that are "wired" both to recognize patterns and also to want to use our energy and resources purposefully, to improve our chances of survival. As cavemen, our brain's reward system would have been activated when we were acting purposefully, by achieving a goal that would improve our health and welfare and the health and welfare of our tribal group.

C.S. Lewis thought that the mere fact that we look for meaning in the Universe (especially religious meaning) is a sign that there actually is real meaning to it. He used the analogy of light and asked whether creatures would develop eyes in a Universe without light. Presumably, the answer would be, no. However, the fact that there is meaning in Life does not mean that it is an objective meaning created for us by God; it could be a meaning that we create, and both the capacity for creating subjective meaning and the innate longing to experience meaning could both be byproducts of the same evolutionary forces. Nevertheless, Lewis's analogy could be taken further: the fact that humans generally expect there to be meaning in the Universe itself, apart from any which we might add, is at least some evidence that the Universe was designed in a purposeful way by some sort of divine mind.

To put it in Aristotelian terms, the Universe appears to have a teleological cause (at least it appears this way to most people throughout the world and throughout history). The fact that we can conceive of the world around us in terms of purpose and meaning and design could be a fact about us, or it could be a fact about the world, or it could be both. Maybe there is purpose and meaning and design in the Universe, and maybe we are designed to seek it, recognize it, delight in it, and even add to it.

Viktor Frankl, the great Austrian psychiatrist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, believed that experiencing meaning in our lives is the penultimate human need, such that when all else is taken away, we can still carry on, so long as we really believe our lives are meaningful, even in a state of extreme deprivation and terribly cruel suffering. His masterpiece, Man's Search for Meaning, makes this case in a way that is hard to argue against; "hard" because Dr. Frankl drew the book's lessons from his own experiences and observations as an inmate of the death camps, surrounded by the very worst of man's inhumanity to man.

In spite of the eminence of Dr. Frankl, I still wonder whether all people in all times and places really do have this need for meaning. It seems that people ask whether Life is meaningful only after they have been disappointed with Life in some profound way. There are people who, to all outward appearances, are completely self-satisfied as they go about the business of making money, collecting status symbols, and engaging in trivial pastimes and empty small-talk, without ever giving a second thought to questions of Truth and Meaning.

True, there are rich and famous artists and businessmen who self-destruct with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll excesses, but these unfortunate souls seem to have already been unhappy and self-destructive, before they set out to conquer the world. Before they hit the big time, their insatiable appetite for fame and fortune appears to have been all that kept them from self-destruction. Mike Tyson  is a classic example of this. Axl Rose is another. Their narcissism drove them to professional greatness, but it ultimately sabotaged what could have otherwise been longer and more accomplished careers. Such people may ultimately turn to pursuing Truth and Meaning after trying and failing to find happiness with sensual indulgence, but they were the type of people who were destined to wonder about the meaning of Life from a young age: they simply weren't happy or comfortable in their own skin, and they needed something to cure them of this essential discontentment -- or "Dukkha" as Buddhists put it.

However, for the many other people out there who never seem to experience (or at least acknowledge consciously) this unhappiness or discomfort within themselves, they seem to be able to get along just fine with sensual indulgence and ego boosts; they never seem to care if there is or is not anything more to Life than their American McDream.

For those of us who feel the need to find Meaning and Purpose, perhaps this fact about ourselves really only shows that we experience dukkha because of some psychological or emotional injury or deprivation at a formative stage. Imagine two kids: Billy and Bob.

Billy is esteemed by his parents, teachers, and peers to be charming and likeable and deserving of constant praise and fawning. He grows up to think that he is the most awesome and talented person in the world, even though he isn't. Moreover, he is given opportunities and resources that further his smug self-assurance. Billy will probably only think about Truth and Meaning as an afterthought. Maybe he'll be raised in a church and give God his due every Sunday morning -- he'll sing a few upbeat songs and listen to a canned sermon about how great God thinks people like him are (and how rotten God thinks the people are who are not like him) -- and Billy will be very happy.

Bob, on the other hand, has parents who are overworked and underpaid and chronically stressed out and short of time. He is shy and socially awkward. He asks questions that get on the teachers' nerves, and they make little effort to hide their contempt for him. As he grows up, he gets little guidance about how the world works, so he has to figure everything out by trial and error. Bob will probably be very unhappy with himself and with Life in general, and he will want something, anything, to give him some sort of real and lasting happiness. If he does have access to sensual indulgence, he will quickly find that it does not satisfy his instatiable need for affirmation and fulfillment. Bob will eventually -- I say inevitably -- turn to questions of Truth and Meaning, because that's all that is left. (All, that is, except social connection and acceptance and meaningful opportunities to develop and apply his talents in a rewarding way.)

It appears to me (but what do I know?) that we seek Truth and Meaning only because other things have not worked out for us. But for those who honestly believe that Life's other pleasures are working out for them, they do not seem to care about Truth or Meaning. Therefore, it may be that our desire for Truth and Meaning is not a fact about the Universe or about Human Nature universally, but is only a fact about our own psychological and emotional development.

What about the religious answer to the Meaning of Life?

I have considered the various answers provided by major world religions to the question of Life's meaning, and I have found them each somewhat helpful, but ultimately problematic. As with different philosophers and philosophical schools, I have benefited from the way that different religious thinkers have put the question; as I consider what they mean, it indirectly forces me to question myself about what I mean. I also think that the stories that different religions tell do contain some very important insights about human nature and the human condition. Ultimately, however, my problem has been that the religious answers seem to lead to a whole package-deal of concepts, doctrines, and practices that are more about justifying the religion itself, than about enabling human individuals to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives.

Religion and the Meaning of Life

I think that is what makes Jesus, as opposed to the Christian religion, so powerful and relatable a figure; he did not really care about theology or religious traditions or religious institutions, and he behaved almost like a Cynic (as in the Greek philosophical school) towards the religious leaders of his day. Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath, and when the blind man was cross-examined by the Pharisees, he gave a disarmingly simple retort: "Whether he is a man of religious and moral virtue, I do not know; but I do know this: I was blind, but now I see." (John 9:25)

For the religious systems, their leaders do seem to be concerned with having you buy into their way of seeing the world and their way of doing life, as opposed to sharing their insights with you and allowing you to reach your own conclusions. Religions seems to offer the deceptive luxury of taking the burden of your spiritual and moral freedom away from you; they take responsibility for your life, and you "outsource" your thinking and moral and spiritual decision-making to them. In exchange, you get some tidy, pat answers to Life's biggest questions and problems, as well as the considerable benefit of a ready-made community of believers with whom to enjoy fellowship and support. While the relationships can have some real value, the other aspects of the religious life seem to inhibit, rather than help, the search for Truth and Meaning.

What is it that makes me believe that Life is meaningful?

So now that I've reached what seems to me to be the likely reason why I, and people like me, look for Truth and Meaning, let me consider whether Life is meaningful.

I do believe that happiness is possible, and that is something (as Aristotle noted in the Nichomachean Ethics) that is worth pursuing for its own sake. Perhaps, as hedonists like the Epicureans have believed, happiness is the highest good and something that makes Life meaningful.

Incidentally, if you think of "hedonists" as being wild and deranged, think again: "happiness" for an Epicurean would be characterized by emotional stability and contentment, not by wild sensual indulgence or disordered and unrestrained appetites. Epicurus seems to me to have taught something very similar to the Buddha: cultivation of personal virtue and mental and spiritual clarity; taming our desires and passions, but not denying or unnaturally suppressing them; and learning to experience happiness and fulfillment in the moment-by-moment experience of being alive and  in Life's simple and natural pleasures. Buddha taught that Life is characterized by Dukkha (or distress, discontentment, etc.) and that by living and acting morally, we could experience Samsara, or freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and all the clinging and clawing that Life does to perpetuate itself meaninglessly. Epicurus taught that discontentment pervades Life, but that we can experience Ataraxia (or freedom from physical and emotional disturbance) by retraining our minds to desire and enjoy only natural pleasures (such as basic food, water, and friendship), and to avoid all unnatural pleasures (such as acquiring status symbols), as well as most pleasures that are natural, but not necessary (such as extravagant foods).  Of the two, I prefer Epicureanism to Buddhism, since Epicurus recognized the value in some of the attachments we form to other people (especially friendships), and good relationships do seem to me to be to be critically important for living the "good life."

And this leads me to something that I believe is a crucial insight from the more important and influential schools of moral philosophy, as well as from the major religions: our connections to other people matter, and how we treat other people matters. Confucius put the Golden Rule in the negative: if you would not want something done to you, don't do it to other people. Jesus gave a positive formulation: whatever you would want someone else to do for you, that's what you should do for them.  We are social creatures; we have the capacity for empathy and acting for the good of another person. Maybe this is due to how we evolved; maybe this is due to how God designed us (or maybe both -- evolution and "intelligent design" don't seem to me to be mutually exclusive); but regardless, we do experience joy, meaning, and fulfillment in and through our relationships with others, and in and through our care for the welfare of others. This can be difficult in practice, but it does reliably yield positive effects in our own lives, when we are able to act with love and compassion for others.

Ultimately, I believe that we can experience happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships, and that this give our lives real meaning and, ultimately, makes life worth living.  So what is the meaning of Life for me? Experiencing happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships.

Is Happiness the Meaning of Life?

Throughout the ages, the question has often been asked, "Is happiness the meaning of Life?" There have been widely divergent attempts at an answer, and today we are no closer to consensus than the ancients were. In this article, I will defend the proposition that happiness could be the meaning of life, but it depends.

Is Happiness the Meaning of Life?

Depends on what? Well, for starters, it depends what you mean by "happiness," as well as what you mean by "meaning." Also, the question would implicate your beliefs about the universe (cosmology), God (theology), moral philosophy, etc. It really is a loaded question, but also an interesting one, so let's consider it.

What do we mean by "Happiness?"

Before deciding whether happiness is the meaning of Life, we have to determine what we mean by "happiness." When people talk of "happiness" and being happy, what they seem to mean is something approximating the following definition: "happiness" is the experience of being satisfied with one's self (who one is) and the circumstances of one's Life, including one's relationships, livelihood, living arrangements, and prospects for the future.

As such, "happiness" seems to involve both the absence of negatives and the presence of positives. The negatives would include physical pain and psychological distress, as well as the things that would cause one to experience those ills, and the positives would include physical pleasure and emotional contentment and delight, as well as the things that cause one to have those positive experiences.

Of course, in this world, one cannot expect to experience only positive things. But happiness would seem to require, in total, more positives than negatives. While the "wise man on the rack" may lead to interesting philosophical speculation, it is hard to imagine that anyone could be genuinely happy while simultaneously experiencing physical torture and abandonment by friends and family, and without the benefit of any real hope for some future benefit to accrue to anyone from his or her present agony. Some critical mass of positive experiences seems to be necessary for happiness to be realized.

[Take a break from reading and watch this video about Happiness...]

[Video about happiness, embedded from the TED channel on YouTube: "What Makes a Good Life" by Robert Waldinger]

What do we mean by "Meaning?"

When people speak of something having "meaning" or being "meaningful," they seem to be describing something inherently personal. The thing or experience is meaningful to them. If you press them on what makes something meaningful, it typically involves some essentially personal connection, for example, an old watch has sentimental value because it once belonged to a deceased relative.

Sometimes the connection is more abstract, but even then, it remains essentially personal. For example, a cross is meaningful to a Christian because it reminds her of her belief in Jesus and her commitment to obey his teachings. This belief and commitment are essentially personal: no one else can have those beliefs for her or make that commitment on her behalf; she must do it herself. She may say, "Well, Jesus is the Savior of all the world, not just me," but her belief about Jesus is her belief, regardless of whether it is true. She believes that the cross is meaningful because of her personal experiences and decisions. If no one had ever told her about Jesus and if she had no experience of the Christian religion or its teachings, then she would not see any religious meaning in a cross; she may just think it's an "X" and be reminded of playing tic-tac-toe.

So "meaning" seems to describe some significant personal connection to a thing, person, idea, experience, etc.

Also, the meaning of a thing may be positive or negative. If you are behind on your mortgage, the name of the lender may mean something negative to you. You may experience intense negative emotion if you see the creditor's logo on a billboard or on an unopened envelope.

However, when people speak of the "meaning of Life," they almost always mean something positive. When they seek a "meaning" to their lives, they are looking for something that will indicate the ultimate good that comes from their lives or the sum total of good things that they experience in life.

It is possible that for some people, Life, and all that it entails, means something negative: chronic pain, widespread suffering, etc. Someone who commits suicide, for example, seems to find the thought of continued life unbearable.

Nevertheless, even though Life may mean something negative to some people, we will consider "meaning" only in the positive sense. This makes sense, since "happiness" is a positive state, so if the meaning of Life is happiness, then Life would have a positive meaning. In this sense, when people ask about the meaning of Life, they are asking, "What would make my life worth living? What, in the grand scheme of things, would make my life a success?"

I think that when people ask the question of whether Happiness is the Meaning of Life, they mean something like the following: "When considering my life as a whole, is it best for me to pursue, as my ultimate objective, a state of overall satisfaction and delight with who I am and with the circumstances of my life?"

So is Happiness the Meaning of Life?

For any individual person out there, happiness could reasonably be seen as the meaning of life. As Aristotle pointed out thousands of years ago in the Nichomachean Ethics, happiness is the one thing that we do for its own sake, without reference to any further ends. For anything that we want, we want it either because the thing itself makes us happier, or because it enables us to obtain some further good that will make us happier.

Some people, like Immanuel Kant, may object that we do perform some actions merely because we believe it is the right thing to do, without regard for our own personal welfare or happiness. I have subscribed to this belief in the past. But when I consider the experience of holding to this moral belief or acting upon it, I have to acknowledge that I did experience a sense of pleasure and self-satisfaction from maintaining a "higher" or more "noble" moral code. Perhaps it seemed higher in relation to others, or maybe it was only in relation to myself and what I would have been if I had not adopted a particular moral position. Regardless, feeling like I was maintaining a higher or better moral code gave me a very real sense of pleasure, and I suspect it was this pleasure (i.e., one of the ingredients of happiness) that motivated my moral conviction.

People are complex creatures, so our motives and our experiences are also complex. Sometimes, we experience conflicting desires and thought processes. (Some of the Great Courses lectures really spell this out in great detail, such as Outsmart Yourself: Brain Based-Strategies for a Better You by Peter Vishton.) In that case, we may knowingly decide on a course of action that produces some unpleasant effects, even some intense pain or suffering, but our belief that some greater good will come from our action does give us some real experience of happiness in the present, even in the midst of the pain and suffering. There may also be fears of worse pains in the future, such as when one undergoes surgery to avoid worse health problems in the future, or when a Christian martyr refuses to deny Jesus because of fears of eternal agony in hell or because of the hope of everlasting happiness in heaven. We may say we are doing something ultimately for God or for humanity, but it seems we are also doing what we believe will bring us the most happiness.

I recall an objection to this idea in a philosophy class -- I regret that I do not remember the source of this thought experiment, so if anyone can help me identify the proper source, I would appreciate it.  The objection goes like this. Imagine someone gave you two options, and that after you made your choice, you would not remember the act of making the choice, kind of like the red and the blue pill offered to Neo in the Matrix. The first option was to have your next-of-kin cared for after you are deceased, but you would honestly believe that they were not cared for. You would experience all the distress of believing that they would suffer after your death, when in fact, they would end up doing quite well. The second option was that you would think that your next-of-kin would be well cared for after your death, but in fact, they would be left destitute and in desperate circumstances. Although you would have all the pleasure and happiness of feeling like you had made good arrangements for your loved ones, the reality would be that all those arrangements would fall through or completely backfire.

So given those two choices, which would you choose? The first scenario appears to involve less happiness for you, personally, while the second scenario appears to mean that you would experience more happiness for yourself. Yet everyone, or nearly everyone, who considers this thought experiment says that they would choose the first option: to have their loved ones well cared for, even though they would experience all the unhappiness and distress of believing that their loved ones would not be well cared for.

This thought experiment seems to cut against the idea that happiness is the meaning of life for people. Given the right conditions, most people would apparently sacrifice their own personal happiness for the well-being of those whom they love.

However, I am a little skeptical of the conclusion that we are supposed to draw from this thought experiment. Although the person answering the hypothetical question is apparently considering both their immediate happiness and their long-term suffering, recent studies seem to indicate that when we think of our future selves, we use the part of our brain that is active when we think of other people; the anticipated future pain or pleasure is less real, less tangible, less concrete, less vivid, than the present pain or pleasure we are actually experiencing now. (These studies are cited by Peter Vishton in his Great Courses series Outsmart Yourself: Brain-Based Strategies for a Better You.)

Of course, this is not a new idea: Socrates expounded a similar theory when attempting to explain why people so often sacrifice a greater, longer-lasting future good for a smaller, more short-term immediate one. A small object that is very near to our eyes appears to be larger than a very large object that is a long ways away. Similarly, a present pleasure appears far greater than a future one, even though the future pleasure may be much richer and more rewarding. We are very poor at evaluating future benefits in comparison to more immediate ones.

The above theory is obvious to anyone who has ever tried to kick a bad habit, break an addiction or compulsive behavior, etc. You want to lose weight for a variety of good reasons, but all those reasons involve some future payoff; that brownie or cheeseburger looks delicious today.

Take cigarettes, which I quit cold-turkey back in 2004. For the first few days, the temptation to smoke would be incredibly intense at times. The reduced risk of lung cancer many years in the future seemed a poor reward for enduring the all-consuming craving for nicotine that I was experiencing in the moment. Obviously, lung cancer would be much more painful than a momentary craving, no matter how intense, but in the moment, the craving was more real. That's why, as Mark Twain put it, "quitting smoking is easy; I've done it hundreds of times." I tried, and failed, many times before I finally succeeded. And what did the trick for me was a respiratory infection that kept me up one night because I could barely breathe. I thought, "So this is what emphysema would be like, only all the time?" Whenever I had the craving, the only thing that worked to fight it was recalling to my mind, as vividly as possible, my (at the time) recent experience of barely being able to breathe in the middle of the night. That was enough to tip the scales in favor of not smoking (that in addition to a couple of dozen other techniques to psych myself out of smoking, but recalling my experience of gasping for breath was the biggest catalyst for me for quitting smoking). My tactic makes sense: I had to make the pain of smoking real in a present, tangible way, in order for me to use it as a counterweight to my monkey-mind's craving for relief of my intense nicotine fit.

In situations, like the thought experiment described earlier, where we appear to be sacrificing our own happiness for the good of others, I believe that if we are self-aware enough, we will find that we really believe (perhaps subconsciously) that we will be happier if we make the sacrifice than if we don't. In the thought experiment, you are making a decision about the future welfare of your loved ones, but you will not remember making it in the future. Nevertheless, while you are making the decision, you would be very much aware of your feelings of kinship and loyalty, as well as your desire to feel good about yourself as being a good person who does what is right. On the other hand, you would be very acutely aware, while you were making the decision, of the distress of feeling like you had betrayed those to whom you were closest, and feeling like you had been a bad person who had behaved shamefully and treacherously. I believe that those immediate feelings would factor into your decision (especially when considering the thought experiment as some abstract, hypothetical question), so even if you decided on an apparently honorable and altruistic course of action, you would very likely be impelled towards that course of action by your desire to gain happiness or pleasure and to avoid pain and emotional distress.

Based on my own experience, I believe Aristotle was right when he identified happiness as the ultimate motivation for all our actions and decisions. It may seem to cheapen moral ideals to say that we pursue them because of our own desire for happiness and pleasure, in conjunction with our (possibly greater) desire to avoid pain and suffering. But if something is good, why should we not take pleasure and delight in it? If anything, this seems to enhance the value of our emotional experiences, rather than degrade them. Of course, it may be that we are designed to take pleasure in doing what is morally good, or it may be that as social creatures, we evolved the faculty of taking pleasure in acting for the good of others, rather than ourselves. In either case, the pleasure or happiness we experience may point to some further good, as defined by God or in terms of what will benefit our species as a whole. But if so, that would not be a good which we experience directly. What we do experience, what actually does motivate us to act or not act, is the desire for happiness and pleasure, operating in conjunction with the desire to avoid pain and suffering.

Happiness is probably what we're after when we look for Meaning in Life...

So is Happiness the Meaning of Life? What we are really asking seems to be, "When considering my life as a whole, is it best for me to pursue, as my ultimate objective, a state of overall emotional joy and contentment combined with physical pleasure?" We may consciously say that we have higher and more noble motives than to make happiness our ultimate aim, but nonetheless, happiness does appear to be what we do, in fact, aim at. 

If you've read Viktor Frankl's incredible book Man's Search for Meaning, then my conclusion probably seems tawdry and ignoble. After all, Mr. Frankl showed that even in the midst of incredible suffering and deprivation, people could nevertheless find meaning in their lives. However, I don't think that my conclusion disagrees with Frankl's report. The inmates at Auschwitz desperately needed some source of happiness that would counter the terrible cruelties inflicted upon them by the Nazis. The meaning that they were able to find in their lives, even in Auschwitz, gave them some very real happiness.

So if finding meaning is what gave them happiness, then how could that meaning be happiness? That seems an irresolvable dilemma. Yet, there are, perhaps, different degrees or levels of meaning that we can experience. Why did they seek meaning? For the good of another? Perhaps, but as Frankl readily admitted, most of them knew that their friends and family were likely to perish and that possibly nothing of their former lives would survive. If a husband knows that his wife or daughter is likely already dead, or at any rate, that she is unlikely to be benefited by the significance and meaning that he attaches to their relationship, then is it really ultimately for the good of that person that one is acting? Even if one is motivated by a desire to help others or to suffer "well," it seems that the source of that motivation is the happiness or joy that one experiences from acting in accordance with one's convictions or of proving to oneself that one can still find goodness in the world, even if only in some small and seemingly inconsequential act of kindness. In all of that, the deeper or more powerful sense of attachment seems to be to the desire for happiness.

Of course, what I've said above may be completely wrong. No doubt, if Viktor Frankl were alive today and read this, he would likely offer some powerful rebuttal, made all the more persuasive by his having lived through it, first hand. 

Christians may point to Jesus' passion and crucifixion as an example of God demonstrating that love is a greater good than happiness, but doesn't the Bible say that it was because of the joy set before him that he endured the cross? (Hebrews 12:2, KJV.)  It may be that God created us for relationship with him through Christ, yet such a beatific vision seems to entail our own happiness, as well as the possibility of bringing happiness to God. If Christ is our example, then according to the Bible, God the Father chose to validate Jesus by saying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." So for the Christian, maybe the meaning of Life is happiness, in the sense that we share in and enhance God's happiness.

Alternatively, maybe there is a Deist God who created humans for some purpose of which we are unaware, and that all of our pleasures and pains are aimed at something else entirely. Or perhaps the evolutionary biologists are right, and that the capacity for happiness is merely a trait which we evolved because it was useful for survival as a species, basically a tool for getting us to do the things that make our species more likely to flourish. But in either event, we seem to be more attached to happiness than to anything else, so to us, subjectively, happiness still seems to be the meaning of Life.

But if I take a step back and look at what I have written, it also seems so absurd that I should consider or write about something so grand as the meaning of Life. I can't even figure out how to program a DVD player to record something on TV. (I suppose I could, but it doesn't mean that much to me: I don't believe learning that skill would really increase my happiness.) I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast today, yet somehow I can write about the meaning of Life?

Is happiness the meaning of Life? Instead of making any claim about the meaning of Life for anyone and everyone, let me just say for myself what I take to be the greatest good: to live with peace and contentment, fostering rich and rewarding relationships with others, doing work that I enjoy and which expresses what I believe to be my deepest nature, and feeling satisfied at the end of my life that I left the world a better place than it was when I found it; and I believe that these things are good because they would make me happy. So ultimately, for me, I think the meaning of life is happiness.    

On Slow Living with Mindfulness

The "slow living" movement started in the 1980s in Italy as a counter-reaction to the "fast life," and specifically to that uniquely American contribution to global cuisine: fast food. Although the focus still seems to be on food, the slow living movement has grown to encompass other areas of life, and it dovetails nicely with the practice of mindfulness, and specifically the mindfulness-based stress reduction developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Slow living is better than no living!

Slow living is a much-needed antidote to America's overemphasis of efficiency and productivity

Slow living is a much needed antidote to America's wild worship of efficiency and productivity. When we speak of a person's "net worth," we assess it in terms of dollars, instead of relationships and experiences. We look at multi-millionaire hedge-fund managers as examples of great success in Life, without stopping to ask whether they are on speaking terms with their children, or whether anything else in Life really matters when it's all said and done. We emphasize quantity over quality, and maybe because the quality is so poor, we feel like we're not really missing out on much when we do life at 100 miles per hour, with a lifetime of potential memories whizzing by too quickly to be savored. Slow living is a reminder that there is more to Life than business and making money, and we should question our assumptions about what counts as success in Life.

For many Americans (as well as for the British, the Japanese, etc.), each passing day means another deadline is drawing dreadfully closer. The typical worker is expected to get more done, in far less time, and for less pay (adjusted for inflation) than workers a generation ago. In most families, both parents are working full-time -- and even overtime -- out of necessity, leaving less time for housework and caring for children. Every day, the to-do list seems to get longer, and it can seem like the only way to catch up is to cram even more activities into our already overstuffed schedules. Even though studies have repeatedly shown that multitasking is a myth, we feel like we can't afford to take the time to do one thing at a time, so that we can do it mindfully and meaningfully.

The reality is that our culture is sick. We obsess so much over time, that the difference of a few minutes, or even a few seconds, can cause us to lose our tempers if we are running behind schedule. In all our haste, we miss out on Life's simple joys and pleasures. We defer our enjoyment for a tomorrow that may never come, and when we look back at the past, we see that despite all our frantic hustle and bustle, we never really arrived anywhere.

As Shakespeare put it in Macbeth, "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour on stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing." If it was true in Shakepeare's day, it is all the more true in ours.

As a much-needed antidote to this American madness, Italy has given us the "slow living movement." This overlaps nicely with some of the concepts and insights, such as mindfulness, that American thinkers have imported from Asia's Buddhist cultures over the past few decades. Similarly, modern readers are beginning to rediscover the wisdom of ancient Greeks, such as the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans, who advocated ataraxia, or freedom from worry and distress, as one of the highest goods in Life.

Slow eating...

I remember meeting some exchange students from the former Yugoslav republic, and I was intrigued by their response when I asked, "What would you say has been the biggest culture shock for you, when you think about the way Americans do things, versus the way things are done in your country?" They chuckled, thought for a minute, and then one of them replied, "The way Americans eat food."

I asked what he meant by that, and he said, "At home, a meal is a big event. We stop what we're doing, and everyone comes together to eat together and visit. It is a big social event for the day." He then added that the quality and freshness of the food was also much better and that people took the time to enjoy eating it. He contrasted this with American's attitude towards meals: we often eat alone, on the go, as quickly as possible, with our minds elsewhere, etc.

If we want to live more fully, a good place to start is with our meals. From the way meals are done in much of the world, I get the sense that fellowship and food go naturally together. There's something about eating food with family and friends that really does make the meal much better.

Also, if we eat more slowly and mindfully, we tend to eat less, but to enjoy what we eat much more. I have been as guilty as anyone of chowing down on a meal without really tasting the food or enjoying the experience. Then, I'm staring at an empty plate and feeling full, but dissatisfied. I may eat more than I should, not because I'm hungry, but because I feel like I will somehow enjoy my food if I eat more of it. But I don't. However, when I remember to take the time to savor each bite, to chew it slowly and really experience the flavors and textures of the food, I enjoy my food more and feel more content when my meal is done, and I'm less likely to overeat.

Of course, there's no reason to stop with reforming our approach to food. Slow living, in conjunction with mindfulness, is an approach to Life that brings great benefit in almost every area: relationships, aesthetic enjoyment, hobbies, and even our work. Since "multi-tasking" leads to distractedness and mistakes, we can often get more done, in the long run, by taking our time than by rushing things.

Video on Slow Living

[Embedded video from TED channel on YouTube: Carl Honore, "In Praise of Slowness."] 

Video on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

[Video embedded from Google's own channel on YouTube: Jon Kabat-Zinn leads Mindfulness Session at Google]

The choice between slow living and not living

When it's all said and done, the choice is not between slow living and fast living; the choice is between slow living and not really living at all.

Life is too short to burn our candles at both ends! And no amount of money can buy back the experiences we miss, if we race frantically through our days. I have wasted too much of my life already, chasing an illusory carrot or fleeing from an illusory stick.

The carrot is the promise of some future payoff: graduation, getting a "real job," getting married, having a family, getting the kids out of diapers, getting the kids through school, retirement, etc. Every time I crossed one finish line, I realize that the race was really far from over; in fact, it was really just getting started. The stakes were now even higher than before, since the next "finish line" was even more critical. So without being able to really enjoy reaching the last milestone, I found myself racing mindlessly towards the next finish line.

The stick consists of any of those imagined catastrophes that has ever kept me up at night: all the what-ifs that will become nightmarishly real if I don't keep running the rat-race with all my might and cunning. What if I don't get a scholarship? What if I get a bad score on this standardized test? What if I can't find a job? What if the car breaks down? What if, what if, what if?

And then there's the desire for distraction and staying busy, which can really come from a fear that my life is ultimately "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (I think this is what lies at the root of "boredom.") If I stay busy enough and preoccupied enough, I won't have to consider that. I won't have to look into the empty vastness of what looks to be an existential vacuum. I won't have to face my responsibility to choose what my life will be or what it will mean.

But if I lose my life through chasing the carrot of some imagined future payoff, or in running away from some faceless anxiety, or in trying to paper over the biggest fear of all, that my life is ultimately meaningless, then my worst fear will be realized: my life will have been meaningless. As Jesus said, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose his soul?"

So I am going to be intentional about taking a more leisurely pace through Life. In addition to practicing mindfulness while I'm meditating, I will strive to practice mindfulness while walking, talking, eating, and working. After all, slow living is better than no living!

See also, slow living article on Wikipedia; WebMD article on why multi-tasking is a myth; and UMass biography of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (with links to various mindfulness resources). Also, check out Welcome to Finding Meaning in Life for more about this blog and other posts about topics like "happiness" and "meaning."

On Recognizing How Advertising Works on Me

After years of thinking myself relatively immune to superficial and gimmicky things like advertising, I've come to realize, much to my chagrin, that I am not as immune to it as I thought. However, I think that this acknowledgment is a step in the right direction. In recognizing how advertising works on me, I can hopefully take its influence into account, and hopefully this will enable me to make better purchasing decisions in the future.

How Advertising Works . . .

I'm Not As Immune to Advertising As I Thought I Was!

I used to pride myself on seeing through the marketing ploys and advertising gimmicks of the corporate conmen. For example, back when I used to smoke, I would buy whatever brand of cigarettes were on sale. At the bar where I was working at the time, marketing agents from the various tobacco companies would frequently visit, passing out free samples of new varieties of cigarettes or adding you to their mailing lists in exchange for a promise to send you a free carton. I would take their cigarettes, but never convert to their brand.

I thought I was incredibly independent-minded, since I could smoke any brand of cigarettes I chose, without succumbing to the cartoonish charms of Joe Camel or the cowboy image of the Marlboro Man. In reality, though, the tobacco companies had already hooked me years before: my decision to try cigarettes in the first place was influenced by decades of relentless marketing and clever advertising. Part of the temptation was that smoking seemed so debonair and exciting, but that element had been added by the corporate conmen; there was very little sophistication or excitement inherent in the product itself.

The eye-opener for me came when I was on vacation at the beach a few years ago. My wife was about to go to the store for coffee, milk, cereal, and sandwich-making ingredients. She asked me if I wanted anything. To put myself in the mood of relaxation and enjoyment, I specifically requested that she get "some really good, dark beer and some really good coffee." Then, thinking about the sandwiches, I added, "And get some really good mustard, something like Grey Poupon."

How Grey Poupon's Advertising Worked on Me

As she left, I wondered, why did I specifically request Grey Poupon like that? I wanted to enjoy higher quality food and drink, since I was on vacation. I do enjoy dark beer and good coffee, but why was I so specific about what kind of mustard went on my sandwiches? Was there really that much difference between the various brands of Dijon mustard?

Then, in a flash, it hit me. I remembered the commercial from the 1980s, which was so widely imitated and lampooned throughout American culture: two British gentlemen are next to each other in their posh Rolls Royces, and one asks the other, "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"

I had requested Grey Poupon mustard for no other reason than the influence of that commercial. At the time of the incident I am describing, it had probably been at least twenty years since I had last seen a Grey Poupon commercial on television, but there it was, all the same, lurking silently in my subconscious, just waiting for the right cue to exert its subtle influence. And I thought to myself, holy shit! This advertising is some powerful stuff!

As a child, I had seen this commercial. As an adult, I really had not been aware that I remembered the commercial, until something brought it to my attention. When I saw the commercial as a kid, I had practically no understanding of human psychology, neuroscience, sales, or marketing, so I was easy prey. I thought the commercial was amusing and a little funny. I remember kids at school imitating the commercial's dialogue. I had never consciously thought, "I want to be like those two pompous and stuffy guys in the commercial, so I'll use Grey Poupon mustard." Yet somehow, I had subconsciously adopted an association between Grey Poupon mustard, on the one hand, and elegance, refinement, style, taste, and luxury, on the other. And that subconscious association was so strong, that it was still influencing my purchasing decisions more than twenty years later.

How to Resist the Subconscious Influence of Advertising?

Of course, if I'm honest with myself, the Grey Poupon example is not an isolated incident. I can sing along with certain advertising jingles from memory. If you were to play only the video of the advertisements that ran during Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s, I bet I could supply the audio from memory. I remember very little about being a young child, but I remember all those songs from Sesame Street, as well as all those songs from so many mindless commercials. And if I'm still falling for Grey Poupon's silly gimmicks, then how many other products am I buying because of subconscious influences like that?

I've heard some good suggestions for reining in impulse buying, such as giving myself a "cooling-off" period, where I give myself some arbitrary amount of time between making a decision to buy something and actually making the purchase. Another effective tool has been restricting my purchases to cash, instead of using plastic, since my cash on hand is always more limited than what my card might allow me to purchase.

In recognizing how advertising works on me, I see that it is not a fair fight. Collectively, the advertisers have more manpower, more resources, more time, and more money to leverage against me, but now that I'm starting to be honest with myself about my naivety and gullibility, I will hopefully be able to resist them a little better than before.

On Giving Advice

I've been thinking a lot lately about advice: how to give advice, how to receive advice, how to discern between good and bad advice, etc.

On the one hand, the Proverb rings true to me that there is wisdom in having many counselors. (Proverbs 11:14.) On the other hand, the old saying also rings true that "opinions are like assholes: everybody has one, and most of them stink." Nothing so delights an ignorant man as giving his opinion on a subject he knows almost nothing about. If you do have a multitude of counsellors, you have to choose them wisely, as well as understand that an expert in one area may be a fool in another.

So how do you recognize good advice, ignore bad advice, and give only helpful advice to others?

On giving advice, and receiving it . . .

Why do we give advice?

Thinking back to occasions when I have given, or wanted to give, advice, I can see a mixture of good and bad motives. I think my desire to give advice has sometimes sprung from a real empathy for a person who may have been facing a rough situation, and I wanted to feel like I had something to give them, even if it was just advice. At the same time, if I look deeper, I think another part of me was scared by this empathic connection with the other person's problems, and I wanted to create some distance between his situation and my own; and giving advice seemed (on a subconscious level) a good way to do that. After all, if I had the answers to give him about what he needed to do, then I thereby demonstrated that I was really not just like him; he did not have the answer, but I did. That was really arrogant, but looking back, I think that I detect a subtle streak of arrogance in much of the advice that I have given, and it probably sprang from that secret fear that it could just as easily have been me in a bad spot, needing someone else to give me advice.

Moreover, there was the additional burden of being a good Christian. By that, I don't mean what you might expect. What I mean is this: if I believe that I have a deep and abiding relationship with the God of the entire universe, and if I believe that I have hundreds of pages of Bible verses that are plain enough for me to understand God's will for my life and all that, and if I believe that God is all good and all knowing and all powerful and that he has made lots of apparently straightforward promises throughout scripture to guide us and never leave us or forsake us; if I believe all that, then it is frankly very terrifying to acknowledge that I don't have any answers when faced with a challenging situation.

Looking back, I recall times when I felt an urgent need to give some satisfactory answer or comforting words to someone facing difficulty, but really, if I'm honest with myself, the urgent need I felt was for myself. I felt like I had to prove to myself that my faith was something real enough and meaningful enough to deal with Life's challenges.

True, God never promised to give us the grace to deal with someone else's tough experience. And shockingly, rather than give us any kind of definitive answer as to why bad things happen to good people and why there's so much apparently needless suffering in the world, Jesus instead joined in our suffering. So it shouldn't surprise me that, as a Christian, I frequently find myself without any clear answers, especially when considering the problem of suffering in the abstract, as a philosophical issue.

But when faced with someone dear to me who was going through a really rough time, I felt like if my faith and Bible knowledge meant anything at all, I should have some comforting words or wise advice to give. (Maybe I should have just been more like Jesus, and just mourned with those who mourn -- although Jesus did do a lot of miracles that instantly delivered people from tough situations, too.)

Then, there were other times when I really did know something practical and helpful about which to tell the other person. In those cases, I -- strangely -- did not feel as desperate to voice my opinion or to have the last word. I simply let it be known that I had some experience in that area and could offer my insight, for whatever it was worth, and then, when the person was ready to receive it, I shared it with him.

I suppose the discrepancy is noteworthy. In one situation, I really did not know, but I was desperate to appear as if I did. Whereas, in another situation, I really did know something, but was less obtrusive and insistent about giving my advice, and less concerned about whether the person ultimately agreed with me and heeded my advice.

None of this was clear to me at the time. What brought it to my attention was when I was the one going through a tough situation, and no shortage of people lined up to give me unsolicited advice, most of it bad. Why did so many people, who all seemed to mean well, give me such bad advice? In puzzling over this question, I reflected on my own advice giving over the years, and I realized that I, too, had doled out more than my share of bad, unsolicited advice. Sheesh!

Some rules of thumb about distinguishing between good and bad advice

My own experiences of giving advice, which I realize in hindsight was foolish and counter-productive, has led me to formulate some basic rules of thumb about how to distinguish between good and bad advice.

In my experience, most of the good advice has been prefaced by words such as the following:

• "I don't know what to tell you, but here's something that helped me out . . ."
• "You know, I actually have a little bit of experience with that; I may be able to help you out."
• "Well, for what it's worth, I had some success with . . ."

Most of the good counselors showed restraint and humility. They did not force their opinions on me; rather, they offered to share their experience with me, but waited for me to accept their offer, before they launched into it. They also were aware of, and frankly admitted, the limits of their expertise. They also tended to be older, although there are certainly no shortage of older people who have strong, but very uninformed, opinions. However, young people almost never have the intellectual humility or patience to give such advice; that seems to be something learned through getting out in the world and getting knocked flat a few times.

On the other hand, most of the bad advice was prefaced with words such as these:

• "Here's what you need to do . . ."
• "The Lord says [insert out-of-context Bible verse here] . . ."
• "Here's what your problem is . . ."

Most of the bad advice was characterized by sweeping generalizations, appeals to authority, false dichotomies, etc. Instead of restraint and humility, these counsellors (including me) were all too eager to share their opinions, without even bothering to listen or to verify that they had understood the situation correctly.

When to give advice

So for me, and for anyone else sometimes afflicted with the desire to give unsolicited advice, here are some good rules of thumb about giving advice:

• Ask questions first, make sure you understand the situation, before you offer advice.
• Don't tell the other person what he needs to do; tell him what you did and what you learned from it.
• Let him draw his own conclusions about how your experience applies to his situation.
• Don't give advice unless the other person asks for it; let the other person know if you have any relevant experience, and let him invite you to share, before you offer your opinion.
• Don't presume the other person's situation is just like yours; even if external factors are similar, differences in personality can completely change the dynamics of the situation.

And that brings me to the most important lesson that I've learned about giving advice: be willing to follow your own advice, as well as the constructive criticism that you receive from others. So with that in mind, I will try to be more consistent in following these rules of thumb when I am tempted to give advice.