Living a meaningful life

What does it mean to live a meaningful life?

We all desire happiness, but what we don’t realize when we talk about happiness is that happiness itself is a temporary emotion. It feels very pleasant and light, but because it is an emotion is more an indicator for where we stand relative to something that we want in our life at the moment of speaking and short-term. We can refer to being happy for a longer period or to someone’s mood, which can be more stable in time; but at the end of the day, it is still a more temporary activation that we experience as pleasant.

This is not to say that wanting to be happy is not something good. What is important to pay attention to is our relationship with happiness itself. If we get fixated on feeling happy at all times or most of the time, then when we feel sad or angry or any other less pleasant emotion, we consider that our life is terrible. Also, chasing happiness and only positivity can easily trick us into always going for more and more and more of anything, thinking that we can get our next “high” from there.

A mindful way of being happy would be to desire for ourselves to have a lot of happiness in our lives, for our daily emotions to have a ratio of more positive than negative; some scholars recommend from three to twenty-one positive to one negative.

What about meaning?

Martin Seligman, an American psychologist and the “father” of Positive Psychology, says that ” meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you”.

When we feel that our life is meaningful, we can feel excitement, determination, focus, direction, and mindfulness. And when something doesn’t go as planned, or we feel unpleasant emotions such as sadness, we can take a step back and look at the bigger picture and understand that it is all part of the journey.

When we pursue meaning, we don’t expect everything to be only positive and light. Instead, we connect to what every experience means for us, and what we can learn and take from it.

Meaning can also be seen as a sense of worth in our lives, which we all derive differently: from relationships, creativity, accomplishments in a given field, generosity, etc. In the pursuit of a meaningful life, we do our best to check and align with our values, principles, desires, and what we feel is our calling; we are driven by reaching depth, long-term fulfillment, and to do and experience the things that fulfill us and make us feel ourselves and whole.

We can do this by trying to pursue our passions and engage in them as often as possible. And, when possible, even try to make a living from living our passions because when you work on something that you love, it creates joy inside and that joy is manifested in our lives and in our interactions with others. Thus, finding a way to use your passions to give back to the world can be very meaningful: being your whole self for the benefit of all.

Many times when we talk about meaning and passions, we also talk about purpose. Now, for some, finding their purpose in life can seem easy, but for others can be a daunting task, and, in our capitalist world, we have made a BIG deal out of finding our “ultimate” purpose and making money with it! Your life can be meaningful even if you don’t have THE purpose in life or we have found our purpose, and it is not our job.

So let’s bring down what purpose means: having a purpose means having an intention or objective, literally. Thus, you can anytime set a purpose for your life: helping others, inspiring others, creating beauty, creating art, bringing awareness, connecting others, etc.

One key ingredient for our purpose to feel meaningful is to serve us and others (and here we can include nature and our planet) as well. And it’s important to feel authentic while doing it, meaning aligned with your values and principles. For many, focusing on what brings them joy means living a meaningful life, and with what they create out of joy, they inspire and serve others even in simple, everyday ways.

What I really want to articulate is that finding your purpose in life is much easier than we might think: you can reflect on what brings you joy and involves others as well.

How you live your day to day in order to pursue your intention in life can be different things. Let’s say your intention is to help others. That can be done in many ways: working in a call center and giving information about something, being a healer (doctor, therapist, etc.) or working in a flower shop. You can be helpful and kind in any job and it does the job title does not have to be your purpose in life. It can be, but it is not a necessary condition.

While following our calling and desires and doing what brings us the most joy, and assuring a comfortable living by doing so can be the dream and the goal, it is important to acknowledge that, due to systemic issues, it might not always be easy or possible to have these aligned. And that doesn’t give less value to ourselves or to our purpose and feeling that our lives are meaningful.

When you find your purpose and the way that is closer to your heart for living it, no matter what happens around you and your experiences, it will give you a reason to move forward and stay in your center and live even more fully and deeply.

And your purpose can change over the years or with experiences.

Deciding to follow your purpose and living your life in a way that feels meaningful does come with challenges, and it asks you many times to be brave and overcome fears and doubts, insecurities, limiting beliefs, life stories, unhealthy behaviors, to heal old wounds, and find your wholeness. At the end of the day or season, it is meant to be worth it, as it offers you peace and fulfillment.

p.s.: The photo for this post was taken in an expedition organized by Insights Seekers in the desert of Sinai, Egypt, where I took part as the psychologist and coach of the expedition, a very meaningful experience for myself, my work, and others!