Search for meaning for your life
Why didn't Dele search for meaning instead?
Hi Friends, we are here for the week. I hope things are going down well at your end. The Second Wave of COVID-19 is really hooking people out there and don't wait until you lose someone close to you before you take the precautions seriously. You should stay safe and be prayerful. May we outlive this pandemic.
Few friends messaged me to recommend their read for 2021 and I consciously recommended a number of books for them. However, there's a particular book I've been wanting to read. I won't want to recommend what I haven't read and still, I really would love to recommend this particular book because of its title, Man's Searching for Meaning by Viltor Frankl. So, I quickly had to read it. It was a nice read.
Today on Twitter NG, the story of Dele trended for a while, he terminated his life after “suffering depression for 7 years”. He qouted a popular saying in his suicide note, he qouted “Life is like a party, when there's no more fun, you leave”.
I am sure that won't seat well with you, why should you leave life because you aren't enjoying life again. However, this particular incident brought me to discussing insights from the book because we constantly search for meaning for our lives, if we succeed, we activate source for productivity and when we fail, we lose the willingness to live and most people would want to cease living.
The author was someone who spent few years in a concentration camp after the World War 2. It's like a place where people are imprisoned, the prisoners are mostly captives of war, their families and the residents of the conquered town. In that camp, people don't see reasons to live again, they don't have meaning for their lives again and believe that place would be the end of their lives, so they don't seek survival. Today, people die because of lack of meaning. When someone lack meaning, he tends to be consumed by addiction, anger and depression because of the void in his heart.
Dele could have struggled to find a meaning for his life, that is why I am more pained he didn't live to read this book or at least, read my Newsletter. The author shared three Primary Sources of Meaning for one's life, whenever you have someone going through depression or emptiness, you should not forget to counsel them on these three plus whatever advise you have for them.
Pursuing a life task:
In searching for meaning, you should wake up every morning with the goal of having new experiences, acquiring new knowledge and developing a valuable skill to pursue a life long task. You should make it duty bound to pursue a life task, something only your unique self can fulfill. An important task you feel would be left undone if you die that day. When you know a task is waiting for you to fulfill, you'd yearn to survive.
This task might be sharing an experience in a book, making series of presentation on a topic, building a home in space or even building a flying car. With this pursuit, you'd fight for survival.
Loving Selflessly:
Here, love is not what you think it is, it is about struggling to help others succeed. When you feel you lack meaning, think and decide who you will help elevate. Think of a good you can do to lift someone up. Maybe helping an orphan, taking care of a sick, comforting your Grandma, spreading goodness, mentoring students and many more. Frankl said:
“The more one forgets himself by giving himself to another person to love, the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself”
Loving others and spoiling them with good and kind actions help you love your own life.
Suffering Bravely:
Nobody will say that life won't throw shades of suffering at you, it will and definitely, there are meanings to every suffering. If there is any meaning in life at all, there must be meaning in sufferings. Every pain you go through wants you to find a purpose and lessons. When you absorb the suffering of the moment, you make it feel like it's in the past, thereafter, envision what the suffering will make of you and more importantly, the lesson you'd share from it. When you don't quickly find meaning in your suffering it turns to despair. Frankl said:
“Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds a meaning”
Like many superheroes we see on TV, suffering strengthen your belief, values and ideals. Similarly, the Prophets of God who brought the mission to share a value and spread a belief, they absorb the sufferings of their infidels and they drew strength from it.
There is always a need to speak up to a Counsellor, a trusted friend or anybody you can talk to. Beyond reasonable doubts, there will be unfavourable times in our lives and we'd have to battle with our feelings and might even feel empty, the utmost solution is to turn to God and as well apply these three sources of meaning.
Many thanks for reading this week's Newsletter. I hope you enjoyed and learnt from it. Please, share with your friends and make them subscribe. Thanks for your usual support.
We will always have to search for meaning. Thanks for the write up
I really love this waLlahi. A nice piece it's