The question of how to find meaning in life unites all people and is a category where there are no clear, correct or common answers. Usually, the meaning of life does not relate to external events and attributes, but reflects a person’s internal sense of self, his activities, and aspirations. The search for answers to such questions is prompted by a feeling of lack of happiness, unfulfillment, emptiness of one’s own life and the futility of actions.
There is no one global meaning in life that can be found once and satisfy the rest of your life. As a person grows older and develops mentally, not only needs and goals change, but also leading meanings. Various life experiences and the experience gained can change the picture of the semantic space in different directions. Even two people who initially had the same meaning-forming constructs, having gone through different emotional upheavals, will end up living and talking about different things.
In order to understand where to find meaning in life, you need to develop the ability to find joy and meaning in the present moment. To remove the feeling of meaninglessness at the everyday level, it is enough to properly organize your time. Since it most often occurs during moments of anticipation and doing unpleasant things, it is worth ensuring that each day contains the maximum number of small but enjoyable activities. This is a process by which you notice an acceleration of time perception. By doing something that brings you pleasure, you reinforce your sense of meaning, and it is also supported by things that are perceived as natural. These do not necessarily have to be global actions; it is much more important to focus on moment-to-moment joys and pleasures, to build your life as a series of pleasant moments.
If you like to watch the clouds, dance, bake waffles, draw in the margins of a notebook - all these moments need to be included as much as possible in your day. The greater the internal satisfaction, despite the assessment of others, the higher the feeling of meaningfulness in one’s own life. The more natural and spontaneous behaviors your life contains, the higher your sense of happiness and meaning will be. The nature of the human psyche is designed in such a way that when fulfilling one’s destiny, realizing one’s abilities, a person feels joy. This usually manifests itself in the form of spontaneous impulses or desires, which quite often have to be inhibited due to social pressure. But the more you manage to free yourself from the pressure of your environment and fulfill your natural impulses, the more joyful life will become.
To combat the everyday feeling of meaninglessness when you wash the dishes, go to a boring lecture, write a formal report, you need to turn it all into a game. You can play your favorite music in the background, move things from your office to the park, or come up with additional tasks, for example, counting how many times the word “of course” will be said during a lecture. This will not change things that seem meaningless and useless, but it will help change your perception and the resulting emotions.
Life story, or preface
By the way, I understand you, because a couple of months ago I myself was tormented by the problem of comprehension. In my case, the problem was the lack of work that would bring both pleasure and good income. There was a family, there were hobbies, there were beliefs, there were attitudes, but there was no place in the work sphere. That is why it was not that his views on life turned out to be non-standard.
And I gave up, and I didn’t want anything, and I fought with myself. But everything changed when I decided not to deviate from my beliefs and not to break myself. I know my strengths and weaknesses and abilities very well. I knew it would be hard (and it was), but I had to start. In fact, only I believed in myself; others, at best, did not interfere. But my own confidence was enough for me.
And now I can safely say that I feel harmonious and whole. Along with my acquisition of integrity and the meaning of being, other areas began to improve on their own, and most importantly, I feel an endless flow of strength and desire to create. But enough of the lyrics, I think I’ve already inspired you to at least read this article, now in a more general and scientific way.
Vdovin Ivan
- More than 15 years in psychology
- Owner of 2 successful businesses
- Developed his own method “Key Therapy”
- Certified NLP Practitioner
- Certified Hypnotherapist
- In practice I use: Gestalt therapy, imagery therapy, body therapy, art therapy, hypnosis, Hellinger constellations
- Helped over 100 clients
- I invested more than 500,000 rubles in my education
- My blog is visited by more than 1500 people per day
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Why don’t you want anything?
Let me first answer the first question: why don’t we want anything? Everything is extremely simple; in childhood, the “desire to want” was beaten away from us. Remember as a child, you really wanted something, you really dreamed about it, but your parents didn’t give it or said something like, why do you need this? I know better what you need! You'll break it! Don't run into a puddle, you'll be dirty and grimy! I'm sure almost everyone is familiar with this.
In the end, it turns out like this: you are a child, exploring the world around you, and here are your parents who forbid you from doing so. From here the child develops the belief: in order not to anger his parents, it is better not to do anything. And we continue to live with this, go to school, grow up, seem to communicate normally with friends, but there is no desire. Not a drop.
The second reason is related to fear, we are afraid that something will not work out for us, and in order not to disappoint ourselves and fall into depression or apathy, we are inactive and it is better to do nothing than to be disappointed in ourselves.
There are also people suffering from perfectionism who want everything to work out well and right away. But no, this won’t happen, nothing ever works out perfectly the first time. And they also don’t want anything, because they are unsure of themselves and their abilities, and they are also afraid of public opinion, that they will judge them. Here's also greetings from the parents. And then your question is, what should you do about it? The answer will be below.
The structure and essence of the meaning of life
Despite all the ambiguity of the issue, scientists have been able to identify some stable provisions about the meaning of life, for example, regarding its structure. It is noted that, as a rule, there are several meanings in life: the leader and the subordinates. Based on this principle, the following models of meaning formation are distinguished:
- All meanings peacefully coexist or oppose each other.
- Subordination of all meanings to one leader.
- Change in additional meanings under the influence and growth of the leader.
- Inconsistency between the leading and additional principles (that is, the division of the inner world in two).
- The leading meaning serves only as a cover for the ever-evolving true meanings.
- The breakdown of the main meaning into secondary ones.
- There is one leading meaning, but it is interconnected with others and can change.
Thus, the meaning of life is life goals, the means of achieving them (abilities) and the result (information obtained during professional activities, communication and knowledge of the world).
The first conversation about the meaning of life, as a rule, comes in adolescence. Young children can also pronounce this concept, but probably blindly repeating after adults. According to developmental psychology, at this age a child cannot consciously be puzzled by this question.
In adolescence, a person begins to look for the meaning of his life in the present, in youth - to build goals and dream about the future, in maturity - to embody ideas and adjust them taking into account the realities of the existing subjective and objective world.
The meaning of life is based on an individual’s sense of his place in society, his goals and interests, and ideas about the possibility of their implementation. The main characteristics of the meaning of life include:
- duality (can be constructive or destructive for the individual);
- realism (correspondence of meaning to objective conditions and capabilities of the person himself).
Thus, the meaning of life is an axis that helps a person adhere to a single line, build all his spheres according to one thread. Due to this, the individual perceives his life as a whole, and not by spheres (leisure, family, work), and also perceives himself holistically. For example, if there is inconsistency of meanings, a person can be a sycophant at work and a tyrant at home.
The lack of meaning in life is simply the fear of not realizing oneself!
The longer you are in a state of lack of meaning in life, the higher the chance of living your life in vain. Which will lead to moral exhaustion, stress, midlife crisis and loneliness.
And in general, the lack of meaning in life is like flying on an airplane without navigation.
The only right decision is to find the reason for the lack of meaning in life and work through it, which will lead to an understanding of your meaning in life.
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