Meaning, Purpose, and Why Spirituality Matters
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards…”
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
— Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement speech
I turned 40 last year. I love milestones in life because they provide a unique moment of reflection with the added beauty of anticipation. When I look back at my life to date, I see a reason for everything. Everything or everybody that has crossed my path was there to inform the direction of my life. Even the dark moments in my life have made me the person I have become. I know myself better because of what life has presented me with or taken from me.
For me, life is less a box of chocolates and more a jigsaw puzzle. Each time a positive event, time of struggle, or person arrived in my life, I am holding a piece of the jigsaw in my hand with no clue of why it is there or how it may fit into my life. My role is to deal with each to the best of my ability. With the benefit of hindsight, I see each piece, whether good or bad, in its proper place and appreciate how it formed part of my life path.
As I turn to look at my future life, I hope I am blessed enough to live another 40 years. I look ahead and I see more jigsaw pieces scattered ahead of me. I can’t know what significance they will hold. But I trust life, I trust myself to figure it out and I trust that they will fit together in a way that is unique to me. In short, I have the ability to cultivate meaning in my life.
Meaning is how you write the story of your life.
When we are lost, when life doesn’t make sense, when we don’t know how we fit into the bigger plan of the universe, meaning is absent. Meaning is understanding and connecting the dots in your life. Making sense of things that happen and the sequence in which they occur enables coherence. Appreciating that meaning is created is key to doing this. Meaning is the narrative you choose about your life for yourself. It is understanding your life and what has happened in a way no one else can or will.
Meaning in life is personal to each individual. That there is no perfect definition or pathway to achieving it is one of the reasons meaning is my kind of topic. Meaning, like spirituality, is deeply personal and intangible.
In Positive Psychology, researchers refer to meaning in life as consisting of two elements: coherence (that is, how we make sense of the world) and purpose (our core goals and direction in life)₁. More recently, the concept of significance, referring to a sense of having a life worth living, has received a growing focus from research₂ and arguably may reflect that there appears to be a growing hunger for this element. Purpose and the idea of feeling significant go hand in hand.
Meaning necessitates having a belief system.
I spent most of the last year researching spirituality and what it means to people in today’s world. Spirituality and meaning are enormously intertwined. Individuals displaying higher levels of spirituality (with or without religion) have shown higher levels of meaning in life₃. Traditionally, religion helped people to make sense of their world and alleviated existential anxiety.
In today’s world, more of us are choosing the ‘spiritual but not religious’ route. In reality, what religion and spiritual practices have provided is not meaning itself but a roadmap to meaning. What fundamentally underlies religion, spirituality, and meaning in life is a belief system. To create meaning in life, you need to believe in something. Something which is your anchor in life and your inspiration in times of doubt, struggle and pain. A belief system allows you to trust life and perhaps, most importantly, to trust yourself.
Meaning in the 21st Century
Creating meaning is a fundamental part of the human experience. More than ever, we seek out meaning in our lives. This is evident in the widespread use of slogans like “find your purpose.” The overuse of the word ‘purpose’ in common discourse and its apparent absence for many people today is a testament to how secularisation of concepts can result in an empty unattainable version. Meaning and purpose are traditionally spiritual constructs. To identify purpose, we must first have a belief system through which we ‘make’ meaning in our lives. Purpose is meaning in action₄.
We no longer have clear systems to teach us how to make meaning. When a vacuum is created, opportunists will take advantage. In recent decades, work and consumerism have attempted to fill the gap of meaning. If we expect our work or what we own to provide the meaning and purpose we need in life we are likely to be overworked, disappointed and burnt out. The search for meaning is about creating a meaningful life, not just a meaningful job. Equally meaning is not for sale. If we try to package up meaning and purpose into a purchasable commodity, an empty mission statement, we remain hamsters on a wheel in a perpetual search for meaning in our lives.
Meaning insists on personal responsibility.
Through ‘worshipping’ work and consumer products that are outside of ourselves, we have become disconnected from ourselves, disconnected from each other, disconnected from our planet. The absence of meaning leaves us feeling rudderless, unsure of what to do next and frustrated. Yet the power to create meaning always lies within us. Regardless of whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, agnostic or an atheist, research tells us meaning is always constructed by the individual₅. You must find it within yourself.
Meaning-making is like a muscle. It’s a skill you can learn and cultivate and allows you to look at your own life through a lens adjusted for coherence. Meaning does not mean that everything will be clear all the time. We cannot live a full life unless we can accept the uncertainty that life holds. In Kabbalah, they use the line “why is this in my movie?” Why has this event or person come into my life and what can I learn from it? Developing meaning may also mean that we trust that sometimes there is a reason for something and the meaning has not been revealed to us yet.
There is no ten-step plan to meaning. The starting point is to accept the responsibility for developing greater meaning in your life begins with you, seeking greater clarity of who you are and what you want. The courage to do this inner work is the key to unlocking outer meaning.As
References:
1. Steger, M. F., Frazier, P., Kaler, M., & Oishi, S. (2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53(1), 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80
2. Martela, F., & Steger, M. F. (2016). The three meanings of meaning in life: Distinguishing coherence, purpose, and significance. Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(5), 531–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137623
3. Ivtzan, I., Chan, C. P. L., Gardner, H. E., & Prashar, K. (2013). Linking religion and spirituality with psychological well-being: Examining self-actualisation, meaning in life, and personal growth initiative. Journal of Religion and Health, 52(3), 915–929. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9540-2
4. Itzvan, I; Lomas, T; Hefferon, K & Worth, P. (2016). Second Wave Positive Psychology, Embracing the Dark Side of Life. London: Routledge. P57
5.Chamberlain, K., & Zika, S. (1992). Religiosity, meaning in life, and psychological well-being. In Schumaker, J. F. (Ed.), Religion and mental health (138–148). New York: O