16/05/2020
As human beings we often ask ourselves consciously or unconsciously – what can I get from life or what will life give me (as if life is there to serve us – as an individual - in some way)? We want it to deliver “the easy life” where we only have abundance and happiness and if this is not the case we then find ourselves in the psychological pain of resistance to “what is” unfolding and “causing us pain”.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl reframes the question from “what are we asking from life” to “what is life asking from us”? This he says is our “call to meaning” or purpose. Viktor reminds us that the meaning of life is an unfolding one, that it is specific to each individual and has the potential to change from moment to moment as life unfolds. He further reminds us that the answer to the meaning of life is not an abstract one. It is found specifically within the choices and corresponding action that can be only be made within the unique place that we find ourselves in and within the given moment that is unfolding. Therefore, that task required for the fulfilment of meaning is pinpointed to the place we find ourselves, at a given point in time. For example, if I am sitting with my grandchild, soothing them when they have grazed their knee - the ability to share comfort and love is what life is asking of me in that moment. When I am standing in front of a group answering a question - life is asking for me to share my knowledge, to the best of my ability. This is different from the moment where I am sitting writing this article that has been forming inside me for the past few days. As I bubble with the importance I feel to synthesise and share these thoughts, this is a different request from life. Meaning is evolving and changing constantly for all of us, sometimes we answer the call with the very best of ourselves and at other times we find ourselves – I hesitate to say “falling short”, because I think falling short isn’t correct - that it’s more that for whatever reason we are unable to rally our internal and external resources to their best use.
We often think that life happens around us, today I feel that it is more apt to say that there is an orchestra of life that both surrounds us and encompasses us. When, for example, we walk into our backyards there is a symbiosis between all facets of nature and within the symbiosis is the balance or cycle of life as things are being born, live life and then die. Eckhart Tolle would call this the rise and fall of form. This rise and fall applies to everything from the smallest of microbes to the largest of buildings. The planet and everything within and on it, breathes in and out.
If life is a dance, we are all on the dance floor as the orchestra plays. When in a state of flow, we find the rhythm, we become part of the music, we are infused by it and we move within it. When we ask what can life do for us, we become a spectator and remove ourselves from the magic that exists only from within the dance. Each situation offers opportunity for us to sink deeply into the flow. This includes our moments of joy and suffering. The joys, opportunities and challenges that are right in front of us – define where meaning exists for each of us.
Viktor in his Logo therapy (and please remember that man also refers to woman in the quote) states that “man should not ask what the meaning of his life is but rather he should recognise that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life. To life he can only respond by being responsible”. It is in taking this responsibility into hand that we find our purpose – it is at the heart of our “meaning quest” and by default is at the core of our well-being. It is here and now that we find and get to experience (and in turn respond to) the unique place we have on this planet, in this community, within this household and within ourselves. It is within each of these we can find our place of harmony and our life purpose.
In any given moment of joy or struggle – take the time to ask yourself: What is life asking of me?
