Do you sometimes feel uneasy about how your life is playing out? Does your life sometimes seem to be “same old, same old”? Do you sometimes feel like you’re just going through the motions? Do you sometimes feel bored and mildly dissatisfied? Do these times tend to occur when you’re alone with nothing to do? Do they sometimes occur late at night in the silence of your bedroom? Have you developed a way of coping with this uneasiness?
Have you tried doing something new? How about working on mastery of something? Have you tried joining a new group? How about studying some topic in depth? Have ideas like this worked for you? Have they worked for a while and then dissolved into the same old uneasiness? Or has nothing worked?
Have you decided to accept that feeling of uneasiness, set it aside and, instead, search for a new distraction? How about binging on movies? Does spending more time on social media help? Does devoting a few hours each day to surfing the internet work for you?
Do you sometimes feel alone? Are your friends getting less and less interesting? Is it getting harder and harder to make real friends? Are you tiring of hanging out where people gather hoping to connect?
Are none of these things working? Could that be telling you something? Could you be missing something? Might there be more to life than how you are living it now? Could you simply be lacking meaning in your life? Is it time to pursue life’s meaning? Of course, that’s easier said than done! Where do you start?
Religions claim they can provide you with the meaning of life but, for more and more people, religion is just not relevant. Worse, it provides no reasoning behind what it teaches. It simply demands that one accepts its teachings.
Philosophers pontificate about life’s meaning but, for most people, their thinking is too convoluted and difficult to follow. Worse, it’s often kind of boring!
Is there a much simpler way to go about discovering life’s meaning? Here’s an idea that sounds so crazy, it just might work. Reasoning! It is, maybe surprisingly, very easy to master. There are many types of reasoning including deductive, inductive and comparative analysis of argument. They sound a bit academic but they’re quite practical and satisfying to pursue.
The good news is that reasoning provides rationale and support for the conclusions it develops. When you search for life’s meaning using reasoning, what you discover makes sense. You know why what you discover is as sound as any knowledge you possess. This certainty is very comforting and healing.
After all, what could be more important than being sure of the meaning of your life. As far as we know, life provides no do-overs. Wouldn’t you like to be sure you are living it to its fullest? Might you even find living the meaning of your life comforting and reassuring? Does all this sound worth checking out?
Would you like some guidance on how to develop your own reasoning? Would you value strengthening your new knowledge by sharing your reasoning with others?
That’s the opportunity that a video blog entitled the Meaning of Life Video Series provides. If you find viewing it is working for you, you’ll find more food for thought throughout this blog. Good hunting!
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author of the AMAZON Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.