Finding Meaning by Adding Value

 

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.