Love, Relationships, Creativity and Career

[This post is the seventeenth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at [email protected] or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the series!]

Let me conclude this brief look at the idea of meaning opportunities with a bit of a summary and a look at several more golden meaning opportunities.

In my view, people are not aware enough (or at all) that meaning is merely a feeling and that when that feeling is absent, nothing tremendously dramatic has occurred. At the same time, we crave that feeling and feel better in the presence of that feeling, so naturally we want more of them. Meaning opportunities are chances to experience meaning. They are not guarantees but rather educated guesses about what activities, like being of service, and states of being, like contentment, are likely to provide us with that special feeling.

In addition to the golden meaning opportunities we’ve discussed so far, an additional golden meaning opportunity is love. We are built to experience love as meaningful, both in the receiving and in the giving. Even if we have been harmed to such an extent that we have stopped daring to love, and even if we’ve become rather self-involved and believe that the only love we need is self-love, love remains a golden meaning opportunity. You could love today—all that would take is a softening of your heart and an object of affection. If you bestow some love today, the odds are that your life will feel more meaningful. Think of any of the words in the family of love—words like affection, kindness, generosity, and intimacy—that paint a picture of what loving means. Aren’t those evocative words? Don’t you suppose that loving someone or loving something might generate a little felt meaning?

Related to love is the golden meaning opportunity of relationships. We naturally want to protect our individuality, so that we can think our own thoughts, dream our own dreams, and plot our own course. But while solitude and self-determination are precious, relationships remain golden meaning opportunities. They are a place to love and be loved; a place to befriend and be befriended; a place to make work, business, and career connections; and a place to be human in the presence of other human beings. While some relationships are emotional traps and others are emotional drains, the good ones are among our most golden of meaning opportunities.

A third golden meaning opportunity is creativity, that rich, large word that stands for the way we make use of our inner resources and our talents. We can approach anything creatively—creativity is not reserved for certain pursuits like writing a novel or inventing software. Life feels richer and more meaningful when we turn on that inner tap and allow our creativity to flow. For instance, you could choose to approach some challenge at work with grudging energy and a feeling of boredom; or you could decide to invest something of yourself in meeting that challenge by engaging your imagination and your passion. Isn’t the second way more likely to provide you with the feeling of meaning?

A fourth golden meaning opportunity is career. “Career” is the word we use to stand for our desire to work in a regular, productive, and effective way in our chosen field. Of course, it isn’t synonymous with “making a living.” A career poet, for example, has no chance of living on the money she makes from her poetry “sales.” But she can still have a real career, with its attendant psychological rewards, real-world successes, and experiences of meaning. Her career will look nothing like the trial lawyer’s career or the college professor’s career, but it is nonetheless real, felt, and important.

Whereas a “career” in most fields connotes climbing a ladder, making increasingly more money, acquiring security and seniority, and readying oneself for retirement, “career” in many other fields connotes something else entirely. In both sorts of fields, the keys are apprenticing, working, and mastering. Your career can become one of your golden meaning opportunities, especially if it is not pursued to the exclusion of your other life purposes. Workaholism is a meaning drain; career is a meaning opportunity.

The complete list of golden meaning opportunities is as long as your arm. A stroll in the sun might prove a golden meaning opportunity. Reading a resonant paragraph in a book might provoke that special feeling. Having some thoughts and feelings about your childhood come together in a particular way—the look of your mother’s kitchen, the feeling of warmth by the fire—might conjure up that feeling. Remembering might provoke it; imagining might provoke it; star-gazing might provoke it; future-gazing might provoke it. What is your repertoire? What are your best guesses about what go on your list of golden meaning opportunities?

To know your repertoire of meaning opportunities is to know something vital about how to make your life feel more consistently meaningful. Do you want your life to feel more meaningful? Then look to your list of golden meaning opportunities. That list is your action plan.

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