The Search.
That’s what we’re all here for.
Generally, it begins when “bad” things happen to us, or our lives are turned upside down, or we’re faced with a number of setbacks or challenges that make us go looking. Or instead, drink cases of wine!
The search for meaning in an existence at it’s core level that might very well inherently lack any sort of meaning except for what each of us individually brings to our experience, is important.
And that’s the meaning right there. The meaning is in the search.
What gives one person meaning may not be the same for someone else. It’s autobiography.
And it’s essential. Searching and asking questions gives us answers to things based in our heart. It’s not one-fit-all. It’s the answers for you in your heart, to the questions you pose. Your journey is unique to you. That’s why your search is yours. For me to co-opt someone else’s is inauthentic to my own nature.
And the ultimate point of all of this is to find meaning, then, that allows you to persevere. To keep moving forward in the face of doubts and uncertainty. To find meaning that allows you to not give up when things get hard or you get rejected the 100th time or want to move back home and live with your parents. At times when you feel as if the universe itself seems to be a cold, unsympathetic, and very neutral bystander in your experience, you find meaning by not being defeated by it all. To find faith in whatever form that comes and works for you to prevail. That’s meaningful.
And we want to consecrate our challenges. Bless the suffering. Make it all part of the entire journey we’re on. Because it is. Our path isn’t just the path when it’s good. We’ve been taught to discriminate the “bad” from the “good” in our lives. We’re told that life is only good when it’s “good” and everything else is to be avoided. But, ultimately, it’s all good. It’s all sacred. If we move beyond our moral categorizing and personally judging what we think good and bad looks like, we’d start to see that nothing is inherently one or the other. They’re each contained within the other and both are necessary. More accurately, things just are. There have been hundreds of moments in your life that you thought something “bad” happened. But through search and meaning (plus time), you may have discovered that those moments simultaneously lead to something equally good in your life.
It’s all connected. It’s all necessary. And that in of itself, has meaning.