[This post is the sixteenth 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!]
Many things that do not have an ethical component are nonetheless meaning opportunities. It is neither right nor wrong to feel something well up in you as you gaze at the night sky: what Freud called the oceanic impulse is not in the territory of ethics. That cadmium red makes you smile is not an ethical matter, unless you begin to spend more time with color than with your children; that driving down the road with the window rolled down and music playing gives you that certain feeling is not an ethical matter, until we factor in the cost to the environment of your driving pleasure.
A sigh is not moral. But the pleasure of a sexual tryst and the sigh of contentment afterwards, while neither right nor wrong, may well amount to meaning events. It may seem surprising to have to assert that people find pleasure pleasurable, important, and a source of meaning, but that reminder is necessary. For a variety of reasons, among them familial, cultural, and religious injunctions against experiencing pleasure, because of a superstitious resistance to admitting that some pleasure came our way, or because we think that pleasure is too low a thing to honor, many people fail to give pleasure its rightful due or recognize it as an important meaning opportunity.
In a well-rounded life where we are endeavoring to live our life purposes, say on the fronts of creating, being of service, entering into relationships, and so on, pleasure ought to take its rightful place. If our life were only about garnering pleasure we might rightly feel that we had strayed too far from our values and principles. But if we’re living a value-based life and making meaning in all sorts of responsible ways, then we’re certainly entitled to include plenty of pleasure!
Take pleasure in all the usual places—in that piece of apple pie, that massage, that comfy bed, that morning cup of coffee—and add new and different pleasures, for their own sake and as golden meaning opportunities. Pleasure is not a suspect or second-rate meaning opportunity in a life made rich and rounded by a variety of value-based efforts. “Meaningful” and “dutiful” are not synonyms: a meaningful life is more than a dry, disciplined sort of thing. Pleasure is a real and legitimate meaning opportunity.
Likewise, contentment is a golden meaning opportunity.
We make much of our own suffering by not getting a grip on our self-talk and by refusing to choose what attitudes we intend to adopt. For example, you can keep rehashing the past and by so doing make sure that the future resembles it—or you can be here, right now, enjoying all that there is to enjoy in the present moment. You can decide to invest meaning in your very attitude: in an attitude of mindfulness, in an attitude of contentment, in any attitude you deem desirable.
Your very attitude is one of your golden meaning opportunities. Decide to be content. Decide to be calm. Decide to be passionate. Decide to be interested in life. Your life will feel more meaningful according to the attitudes you adopt and the stances you take toward life. You can turn everything into a drama or you can let unimportant matters roll off your back. You can worry yourself into inaction or encourage yourself to succeed. Your attitude amounts to one of your most important meaning opportunity.
Pleasure is not a moral matter, but in context there are always ethical considerations. A hot shower may give you pleasure; but how long a shower can you take in the middle of a drought? Making love to that person may give you pleasure; but what if he or she is your best friend’s partner? Eating smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel may give you pleasure; but what if your health requires that you diet? The pleasure is pure, so-to-speak, but there is always a context. This is true of every meaning opportunity: if it would be unethical to seize it, you forego seizing it. Better to forego a feeling than to disappoint yourself!
That being said, remember the value of experiences like pleasure and states like contentment. They also exist in memory and can be conjured up right now, today. Was it one of your great pleasures to swim in the lake as a child? Consciously retrieve that memory. Who knows: that certain feeling may arise right along with the memory. What brought you pleasure in the past? First, these are things to try again today; second, just the memory of them may make you feel that special way, that life is meaningful.
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READ PART ONE HERE: Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning Is Wrong: The Even Harder Problem
READ PART TWO: On Craving the Feeling of Meaning
READ PART THREE: Why ‘Is Life Meaningful?’ Is the Wrong Question
READ PART FOUR: Meaning Has Its Reasons
READ PART FIVE: The Cost of Meaning
READ PART SIX: Meaning Has Its Rhythms
READ PART SEVEN: Robbed of Purpose
READ PART EIGHT: Meaning as Nature’s Motivational Tool
READ PART NINE: Your Golden Meaning Opportunities
READ PART TEN: One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Stewardship
READ PART ELEVEN: One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Experimentation
Read Part Twelve: One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Self-Actualization
Read Part Thirteen: One Golden Meaning Opportunity: Appreciation
Read Part Fourteen: Two Golden Meaning Opportunities: Achievement and Excellence
Read Part Fifteen: Three Golden Meaning Opportunities: Service, Good Works, and Ethical Action
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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