I wanted to chat a little bit about a very confusing subject: meaning. Let’s take a look over the course of three Mondays at the idea of “meaning opportunities” and what they mean to you.
Anything can prove a meaning opportunity because anything can provoke the psychological experience of meaning. You might get out of your chair, go to the window, look out at the sky, and experience meaning. In this scenario, it was opportune of you to walk to the window and look out.
Maybe you “knew” you would experience meaning because looking at the sky regularly provokes that feeling in you. In that case, walking to the window was intentional. Maybe you “had a hunch” that it was time to get up and look out the window. Again, walking to the window and looking out was an intentional act.
Or maybe you got up and moved to the window “unconsciously,” looked out, smiled to yourself, returned to your chair, and hardly had it register that you had just experienced a meaningful moment. Whether the act of walking to the window and looking out at the sky occurred consciously or unconsciously, whether it registered as a meaningful moment or not, it was opportune that you did it. That action got you some meaning.
You arrived there and had a “meaningful experience.” The same is potentially true about anything we might name: it might be opportune to play with your cat, opportune to move halfway around the world, opportune to donate to your favorite charity, opportune to smile, opportune to call your sister, opportune to sweat bullets for the sake of your new business. Anything small or large might prove opportune and provoke the psychological experience of meaning. Anything, including surprising things, scary things, and unpleasant things, might prove a “meaning opportunity.”
To repeat, anything might provoke the experience of meaning. But many things stand out as meaning opportunities. People regularly experience each of the following as a meaning opportunity: love and relationships; service and stewardship; good works and ethical action; excellence, achievement and career; experimentation, excitement and adventure; creativity and self-actualization; sensory stimulation and pleasure; and states of being like contentment and appreciation. This is not an exhaustive list but it is a suggestive list.
It suggests the intimate relationship between value and meaning; it suggests how “doing” can provoke the experience of meaning but how “being” can also provoke it, and it begins to paint a picture of how a life can be knitted together around meaning opportunities.
Beginning to get the idea? You make meaning by providing yourself with meaning opportunities. This is a great way to live and is your best chance at experiencing life as meaningful. More next Monday!
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