Here it is. My short guide to a meaningful life.
What follows is how to have the best life possibleat least to my way of thinking.
This is how I attempt to live, what I hold to be most important. Imperative. Essential.
This is a commencement speech of sortsone I wasnt invited to give. My spiritual last will and testament, if you willwhat I hope for, long for, aspire to.
This book is who I am and who I hope to be.
These pages are filled with reminders of what matters mostthey are what I tell myself, what I need to hear. They are what I share with othersmy closest intimates and dearest loved ones, students, acquaintances, strangersin conversations, counseling sessions, columns, and classrooms.
You and I can have deeply, profoundly fulfilling and meaningful lives, but not automatically, not effortlessly, not without mindfulness and intention.
You and I can have our best lives and we can have them right now. Today.
We can experience meaning every moment. Beginning right now. This moment.
Heres how.
Meaning Every Moment
I believe every moment of our lives can be meaningful.
Meaning is defined as what is intended to be, the import, purpose, or significance of something.
If we live our lives in a certain careful, mindful, open, grateful way, we can experience the intended import, purpose, and significance of them. We can have meaningnot just on occasion, but in every moment.
Is there a purpose to our lives, a plan, a design? Why are we here? What does it all mean? Is there true significance to existence or is it merely the result of random chaos momentarily materializing into something resembling order?
The exploration of these ideas, the asking of the questions, is far more important than the conclusions we reachthe longing for meaning is itself meaningful, gives our lives meaning.
If we seek, we shall find. If we thirst, we will be quenched. If we ask, we shall receive.
Its all in the approachmindfulness, openness, meditation, contemplation, abandon, deliberate study, intentional experience.
Meaning is everywhere, in everything, awaiting discovery. Its easily missed when mindfulness is lost, when we cease to be present, awake, alive; when we allow ourselves to slip into unconsciousness, slumber, distraction; when we fail to perceive; when we forget what truly matters most; when we, no matter how momentarily, lose our way.
Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of Mans Search for Meaning, observed, Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
Mans Search for Meaning chronicles Frankls experiences as a Nazi concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. Frankl went on to say, For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a persons life at a given moment. And that momentevery momentis what this book is about. Finding, having, sustaining, experiencing meaningall our moments, whether mundane or momentous.
Meaning every moment is possible.
Open yourself up to now.
Awake. Arise. Come alive.
Be present. Be mindful. Breathe. Be.
Dont miss the gift being given to you. The gift of life, of now, of the moment and all the potential it containsall the potential contained in every moment, and the meaning awaiting you inside.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. Henry David Thoreau
Living in the Hot Now
You could call my approach to lifethe joyful, mindful, meditative search for meaning that attempts to savor every sweet secondliving in the hot now. In fact, a dear friend coined that phrase while experiencing life with me.
Late night.
Driving.
Awake.
Open.
Truly happy to be alive.
As you pass your favorite doughnut joint, the neon sign flickers on to announce the wonderful news that the dough-and-sugary-glaze delicacies are hot now.
You quickly snap your blinker on and turn into the neon-lit parking lot. You have to. Being here is such a gift, life itself such a grace, that you have to celebrate, have to acknowledge this magical moment, fully experience it before journeying on to the next one.
Living in the hot now is about ensuring that we dont lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in us.
Its about living intentionally, realizing we have but one life, putting into it and getting out of it all that is possible.
Our extraordinary existences present us with nearly infinite choices. We determine our destinies. How we think, how we live, what we do, who we are, who we become, what path we travelall up to us.
Living in the hot now is about living our best lives, being our best selves. Its about waking up, earning wisdom, learning compassion, choosing joy. Its about being. Being fully alive in the present moment. Living mindfully, carefully, deliberately.