A Meaningful Life

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
Viktor E. Frankl

          Over the couple of years, life has been difficult.  It always seems I am a day late or several dollars short of my goal. I have been frustrated and often very full of self-doubt. My dearest friends have been so faithful to tell me that I matter to them in so many ways and so often.  While I know them to be honest and forthright people, a part of me felt as if they were sparing my feelings. Someone told me recently, that we have a tendency to remember the harsh words far longer than the compliments.  I believe this is a completely true statement so then I supposed it might just be baggage from my past. For a while now, I have considered that I am just not be as good at writing as I thought.  I thought perhaps, somewhere along life’s path I had lost my way.  Like riding on a merry go round, I was going round and round.  Then a friend gave me an article, There’s More to Life Than Being Happy. I had cast it aside after scanning over because even the title made me cringe a bit.  Completely by accident of spilled tea, I found a paragraph on takers and givers. Life is looking a bit different to me now.

          The intention of the article is to define the difference between men and women that have happy lives and those that have meaningful lives.  Since I am quite sure the article is worthy of reading I will not attempt to camouflage it with by giving you a watered down version.  The following link is to the article and I hope you will go and read it:  http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

          However, I do want to address this issue.

          As Americans, we put a great deal of stock in money; I will openly admit that not having a huge income makes life rather taxing at times. I openly admit that I wish I had more so that I could complete the purposes in life I feel I cannot at the current time. In truth, those are things that are for the others in my life more so than for my own comfort.  I want to see that their lives were taken care of and easier. When all is said and done for the day though, it comes down to this.  I have a home. I have food in my cabinets.  I have electricity and internet. I have clean clothes and good shoes.  My life is not glamorous but it is not horrible.  So even though money would buy more privilege, what else do I really need? 

          The truth is simply this I want to know that I matter, that I have done something to make a difference for the better. For me, I do that with words.  I used to do that with my kids but they are growing up and they are moving on with their own lives.  It feels odd to say, it is time for me.  I really have spent a great deal of my time serving others. It makes me content. I am not always happy but maybe I am not supposed to be.  Yes, motherhood was my focus and the meaning in life for twenty-five years but that does not mean that I cannot find a new focus, a new meaning.

          I was talking to my one of my adopted children, Lindsay, on the phone this evening.  She is graduating from college Saturday.  It has taken her six years to get her degree in photography.  Many times over the spans of time, she has been close to quitting. She has articulated all the same questions about why she was doing this, did it make a difference, ect. She lost site of the goal line because it is difficult to have your creative nature stifled by a regulated schedule. Do this my way, do not do that.  I realize it is a process by which we learn but as a writer, I can attest to the fact that often it makes life much harder. Throughout  her school years when troubling times would pop up I was the head cheer leader to say that you must first do what you have to do to be able to do what you want to do and that most great artists had that time of suffering that would redefine their work. Therefore, it was her time to turn the table.  She said< “Mom you wanted to write a book and you did that.  You wanted to tell the story of emotional abuse and you did that and did it well.  You are well into your second one. Publishing is just the small step in the big challenge.”  It was much easier to give the advice than to take it.

          Money does not buy happiness though many people might disagree.  Filling our lives up with possessions only creates a temporary fix. If the only meaning in life is to earn more money to have more belongings you might associate that high with happiness but it certainly will leave empty and void of meaning.  In the article, the study associated that the “takers” are happy people.  They take what they need and want from other and their financial gain.  The givers tend to have found a purpose bigger than themselves.  Often it does not equate to as much happiness but last a great deal longer. 

          I thought I had an undecided life goal until I contemplated my future with my present and my past.  There are two things that are quite obvious to me. Writing has always been a means of truth expression for me about bad situations.  It has been a passion for me since I was twelve years old and I wrote my first short story.  In the eighth grade, I won an essay contest for my school.  In high school, I wrote love letters and poetry for young men to give their girlfriends. In college, I struggled when an American history teacher’s assistant disagreed with me about the fact that freedom from slavery was a general cause of the civil war. Then I was told that writing would not pay the bills and it was time for me to do something useful.  It would take me a decade to return to writing.  My doubts about what I can do are rooted in someone else’s opinion.  If I never publish more than my blog and the poetry that has already been published then in truth have I not found the voice to my dream?  IS it enough to have my purpose mean something to me even if it does not mean bring me financial gain or notoriety?

                    My answer is a resounding yes. This is purpose. Life will determine what is yet to come. I am more interested now in the fact that I can write.  I am free to make my own dreams come true.  Life may continue to be ugly at times this is a HUGE truth. Here is thought of the day though, IF YOU NEVER KNOW SADNESS AND STRUGGLE, THEN HOW CAN YOU EVER REALLY KNOW TRUE HAPPINESS AND JOY.   I would rather take the good with the bad so that I can truly cherish the good.