An essay on how you discover (at last) the meaning of life. If you’re fortunate, you can raise your family in peace, stay married to a long-time love, and die, contented, at the end of a productive and meaningful life.
Perhaps faith is easy for pe…
An essay on how you discover (at last) the meaning of life. If you’re fortunate, you can raise your family in peace, stay married to a long-time love, and die, contented, at the end of a productive and meaningful life.
Perhaps faith is easy for people like this. Life does seem on balance good. The only tragedy seems that it has to end. For others, though, for parents who lose a child to some horrible disease or experience unusual suffering, life isn’t quite so happy. For them, faith is either not easy or not possible. It goes without saying that stock sermons on God’s benevolence ring hollow and false to them. It takes a special kind of minister... someone who has suffered at least as much as they... to reach people like this with any message of hope or grace.
You are a lucky person indeed if you have someone who depends upon you, who needs you, the way children need their parents and husbands need their wives (and vice versa). The feeling of being needed is what gives people purpose and a meaning to live – not some abstract spiritual vision or theory. That is why both the very young and the very old face such a struggle: they have fewer people in their lives who need them. The lucky seniors have their dysfunctional children and grandchildren who still depend upon their wisdom, advice and checkbook. Unlucky ones, who have no family members left living, or no friends, have a tough time. No one needs them. It’s a horrible situation. Their only hope, at this stage of their lives, is to find someone more desperate than themselves who needs help – and to be of service that way.
The same is true of the very young, people in their twenties and even thirties. Too many young people feel that no one actually needs them – unless they’re lucky enough to have a disabled mother or sibling they care for. Early adulthood is about having fun, exploring the world, meeting new people and discovering what you enjoy doing – and, most important of all, whom you want to care for, who needs you. If you neglect this last part of the young adult mission – if you focus solely on having fun and your career and don’t spend time looking for people who need your help – then your life does become literally meaningless and sad.
The reason family is so important for most people’s happiness is precisely because it’s a built-in need generating machine: once you have a family, the needs and problems keep coming like a rushing river. The very thing we think we want the least – needs, problems, responsibilities – is actually what we need the most to be happy. This is Viktor Frankl’s message. “The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour,” Frankl writes. “What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” Asking what the meaning of life is, Frankl says, is like asking a chess master what the best move in chess is. It’s an absurd question. That’s because the best move depends upon the specific situation of an actual game. It’s the same for life. “One should not search for an abstract meaning for life,” Frankl concludes. “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, not can his life be repeated.”
My Books: http://tinyurl.com/yalkyc7x
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bob_hutchinson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robert.hutch...
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/roberthutchinson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robert_j_hutchinson
Website: http://roberthutchinson.com
For speaking engagements, please contact Harper Collins Speakers:
