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.When my mom died, most of mymemories went with her.Plenty of psychologists will tell you that thisreaction is normal.Getting rid of unwanted feelings by concealing andsuppressing thoughts keeps the pain away.Having lost most of the love and meaning in my life, I started look-ing for replacements to fill the emptiness inside me.I didn t know it atthe time, but I was coping by making and searching for meaning.Self-exploration is rarely a straightforward road.I bounced from one sourceof meaning to another.I became obsessed with my body.In middle schooland high school, I found great satisfaction in sculpting my pipe cleanerarms and legs, which dangled from my 126-pound frame.I lived in thegym, grunting and convulsing as I tossed around dumbbells and barbells.By adding 30 pounds of muscle to my frame, I felt strong inside my skin.It was a release; it was rewarding.It was the ultimate art form.But I wanted something more.In tenth grade, I became obsessedwith using my body to become an elite athlete.Since I lacked coordination,balance, good reflexes, or speed, my options were limited.The arcaneDiscovering Meaning and Purpose in Life 237shot put became my new holy grail.Needless to say, this hypermasculineattempt at physical stardom led me far astray from high school popularity,but it did give me a strong sense of self at a time when most teenagersdon t know who they are.After I hit puberty, at the age of 15, I lost my interest in sports anddiscovered the opposite sex.By the time I entered college at 18, bodiesother than my own were my driving interest.I wish I could tell you aboutthe intellectual rewards of going to an Ivy League college.I would be ly-ing if I did.Like many people, when college ended, I bounced around from jobto job.I dressed in claustrophobic superhero costumes to sell trading cardsoutside toy stores, worked as the mail boy for a law firm, and modeledmen s jackets at Oriental auctions.Even when I started on the road to areal adult life by working on the New York Stock Exchange, my lack ofsatisfaction gnawed at me.In keeping with the times, my search formeaning became more deliberate and obsessive.I read books on Bud-dhism, science and the mind, and finally made the leap to turn my sourceof meaning into a career.I left my high-paying Wall Street career and took a few unpaid posi-tions to help me turn my true interests into a career.Slowly, my source ofmeaning shifted once more and I found my  calling as a scientist,teacher, and therapist devoted to understanding how certain people areresilient and fulfilled regardless of the stuff life throws at them.For aslong as I can remember,  intense passion and  dedication are the firstwords people use to describe me.My own search, borne out of suffering,led me to find a guiding direction, or purpose, in life.Looking for DirectionWe live in a time of great uncertainty.As I write this, the United States isin an economic crisis, several wars between countries are long underway,and mass genocides such as what is happening in the Darfur region arerelegated to page 13 of the newspaper as readers move on to fresher story238 Curious?lines.A number of us are going to have to pursue paths that we neverexpected because a lot of bad things are confronting us.When I thinkabout what people need, happiness isn t the first thing to come to mind.Happiness is a sign that things are going well in your life, but itdoesn t say anything about the substance or quality of how you are living.Although many happy people find profound meaning in their lives, plentyof happy people don t.Being happy doesn t provide direction for whatto do.To successfully deal with hardships, take on challenges, and live inthe present with a receptive state of mind to appreciate and make sense ofthe richness of life as it unfolds moment to moment, we need more thanhappiness.Meaning is about gaining insight into what to do and what notto do when we re faced with life decisions, big and small.Meaning en-hances our capacity to work toward a future that is most in sync with ourdeepest values and interests.We can say our life is infused with meaning when we:are at our disposalkinds of situations energize us and what kinds of situations de-plete us-sources in our life time and energy in the most efficient andeffective way (with one foot firmly planted to relish the presentmoment and one foot in the future, striving to live in a way that isconsistent with what we care most deeply about)The reason we search for meaning is that a life without meaning is anempty one.A life infused with meaning is a life that can provide us witha secure, bedrock foundation.Unfortunately, there is no blueprint for finding meaning in life.Exer-cising regularly and eating green leafy foods isn t going to cut it.Think-ing positively and being hopeful about the future isn t  the secret. BeingDiscovering Meaning and Purpose in Life 239grateful for what we have isn t enough.Isolated encounters that evoke joyand wonder aren t enough.Having people in our social world that we careabout, can be ourselves with, and can count on for help isn t enough.Pos-sessing all of the ingredients for a chocolate mousse cake doesn t meanthat you have one.You need to organize the ingredients in just the rightway or else you have little more than a barely edible mess in yourkitchen.The evidence is clear that people who are meaning-makers and ableto learn from events, gain valuable insights, and grow as a person experi-ence profound health and well-being [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]