Finding Meaning by Adding Value
As a child, I watched my parents
wake up very early in the morning, way before dawn, and return to bed way after
dusk, for the sake of family. My parents toiled and labored to provide for the
needs of the family, to put food at our table, enforce discipline, impact cultural,
moral, and spiritual values. When I was young, I was native, and was shielded from
the pains of life. Then everything looked perfect, I dreamed about getting
married, about having my own kids, and living out my destiny like my parents. One
of the blessings of having loving and caring parents is that one gets a free
pass, have little to worry about and believes that life is perfect.
After
the demise of my father, everything changed, my mother was left to continue the
struggle all by herself. She had to work
twice as hard in other to make ends meet. Suddenly I was no longer a child when
I realized that my father was never going to return, that the vacuum his
absence created, has created a shift in how I look at life. Everything changed
and my experience became double digit overnight. That was my first awakening,
my introduction to the task of self-discovery.
It was the first glaring exposure that helped me to adjust the lenses through which
I viewed life, and what I thought the meaning of life was. It occurred to me
that the rhythms of life are not static, that nothing is perfect, that we
cannot be sure of anything, and that what we know about anything is continuously
evolving. I realized that the search for the meaning of life begins at birth
and ends in death. That it is a never-ending search. It was scary, but also exciting. I held both
in hope and delicate balance.
We
all start off from somewhere. We all have our own treasured family stories
about the things that helped to shape our life’s purpose. We all have adjusted
the lenses through which we viewed life as we grow older, and somehow tried to
find our own life’s meaning. Are they always perfect? Maybe not, but that is
not the question. A more interesting question will be to ask ourselves how our life’s
experiences has helped us to become better people. What have we learned? What are
we learning? How has our experiences helped to expand our world? How are our lenses
changing to include the value we add?
The
search for meaning is a search for happiness. Happiness is not about possession
as much as it is about helping to create something. Today ask yourself; “Are
you happy?” Is whatever you are doing now helping you to be your best self? Is your
measure of success depended on your professional life or the wealth you have accumulated?
Is your understanding of the meaning and purpose of your life aligned with your
outpouring love for your dear neighbor? Are you attentive to the cry of poor
and the earth? What gives meaning to life is overrated, please do not be a victim.
be different, save yourself by becoming the means through which others find meaning,
through which the earth is a better place for all.
