Creating A Meaningful Life
An Excerpt from Life Purpose Boot Camp by Eric Maisel
As life gets busier and more complex, we all crave something larger and more meaningful than just checking off another item on our to-do lists. Traditionally we’ve looked to religion and spirituality for a sense of life purpose, but in our secular age the idea of gods or gurus providing this sense of purpose seems less compelling. The need grows stronger every day for new, better answers as traditional answers continue to fall by the wayside.
Certain sorts of secular solutions to this dilemma, such as, “Do what you love” or “Live with passion” sound attractive. But though they possess the virtue of simplicity, they just aren’t psychologically sophisticated enough. Human life is complicated, full of stressors and distress, and can’t be made to match some fantasy of bliss and ease. Any genuinely fruitful exploration of life purpose has to take human reality into account.
Likewise, such an exploration must get at what meaning really is. You can’t construct a meaningful life for yourself if you don’t have a clear understanding of the nature of meaning. ...
http://kajama.com/creating-meaningful-life/
As life gets busier and more complex, we all crave something larger and more meaningful than just checking off another item on our to-do lists. Traditionally we’ve looked to religion and spirituality for a sense of life purpose, but in our secular age the idea of gods or gurus providing this sense of purpose seems less compelling. The need grows stronger every day for new, better answers as traditional answers continue to fall by the wayside.
Certain sorts of secular solutions to this dilemma, such as, “Do what you love” or “Live with passion” sound attractive. But though they possess the virtue of simplicity, they just aren’t psychologically sophisticated enough. Human life is complicated, full of stressors and distress, and can’t be made to match some fantasy of bliss and ease. Any genuinely fruitful exploration of life purpose has to take human reality into account.
Likewise, such an exploration must get at what meaning really is. You can’t construct a meaningful life for yourself if you don’t have a clear understanding of the nature of meaning. ...
http://kajama.com/creating-meaningful-life/