The concept of meaning in life is rather important. According to Osho, a very famous and controversial Indian mystic, life has no meaning, it’s like a dance, like a symphony. When you are dancing, you are not looking to get as quickly as possible to the other end of the dance floor, you are not competing with fellow dancers to try to spin more times, complete more swings. You just enjoy and let go, you reach a state of flow, you are in your element and in the present moment.
Life might not have meaning as a whole but if you are not an enlightened master, your day or week should. We can find different types of meaning at any given moment, in different situations. Any pursuit is worthy enough if felt, when chosen rather than imposed, if compatible with one’s value system and predispositions, when enriching for the soul. If your days are meaningless, you are bored, feel depleted or overwhelmed, you are more easily swayed towards unhealthy behaviour and unhappiness.
According to an expert in meaning, Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl, existential frustration often eventuates in the “will to pleasure through sexual compensation” (Tinder or porn?) or the most primitive form of “the will to power”, the blind pursuit of money for its own sake. To this we can add retail therapy, the meaningless purchase of consumerist goods and services to try fill the inner emptiness, the void within.
If you are not in your element, your mind is easily hijacked by the constant stimulation of modern living. Taking some rest at regular intervals is a physiological need and in the hyperactive rush of big cities, a hangover can be welcomed as an invisible, numbing, protective layer for the psyche. This mild suffering can take away anxiety and other ills such as the immediacy of a target or the constant internal chattering of the mind. Letting go gets easier, the emotional pain being translated into a physical nature.
Think of the importance to slow down, reflect, relax, ponder and contemplate. Not enough is said of the traditional Eastern attitude towards meditation. In the frantic West and increasingly modern Eastern cultures of fleeting achievements, the outer world is more important than the inner microcosm. Productivity and the culture of busy, the doing over the being, buying and acquiring over connecting and belonging.
I am one that always struggled to stop the monkey mind jumping from one thought to the next, from a past experience to a future worry. Yoga is my medicine, my way to re-focus, reconnect with the body and ground myself. I do lots of reading, listening and discussing on the philosophy of life and despite a meaningful part-time occupation and a slower paced lifestyle which suit me much more, this manual way to bend the body into still postures is the best tool I found, my sacred routine to let go. Thanks to Yoga and progressive lifestyle changes, I now feel I have a better appreciation of reality and I am living more in my own terms, my days have more meaning.
According to Dr Frankl again, life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. Meaning can be found by creating a work or doing a deed that we perceive as worthy. By experiencing something or encountering someone that inspires and enriches our soul and by the attitude we take towards what we perceive as unavoidable suffering.
Since the beginning of time there is a dichotomy, two often contrasting needs. The need of society to have workers, fathers and mothers, devotees and followers. And the need of the individual to have creativity and space to grow, freedom, diversity and variety, or the mean to elevate its spiritual self to a higher plane.
Most of us are induced to be permanently worried, slogging around to meet mundane chores and serve the basic needs of society, while being exposed to glittering lifestyles and supposedly achievable models of success in the media. Carrying out repetitive work to earn a living or being a disposable component of a corporate bureaucracy is energy and soul consuming. And frustrating when you are set to believe we all could be billionaires, with enough hard work and dedication. This is the faith reserved for most of us, what society wants and needs us to do, 9 to 6, Monday to Friday. It is then difficult to have time and space to cultivate higher, more meaningful pursuits.
In a dry, basic and economical way, we can see the long hours spent serving the manager, the owner of the company or the shareholders, as a form of currency exchange.
If you ask anyone what is the definition of currency, people will be fooled to believe it’s dollars, euros or pounds. A broader definition states currency as something that is used as a medium of exchange. It is never advertised in the media, but there are at least three currencies, probably four: Money, Time, Energy and Health.
Energy as in effort but also life force, what the Indians call Prana and the Chinese Qi, you can call it vitality or even soul. To make it easier to understand, if you feel low and depleted at the end of a work day, an activity or a conversation with someone, you gave up your Energy currency. If you feel good, you both gained Energy.
The main difference between the four currencies is that Money you can make, lose and make again and people might have more of it towards the end of their lives, and could even be very cash rich on their deathbed. Energy or vitality, depletes naturally as you age and Time you can never get back. Health has a similar nature to Energy and Time. Money is great to have obviously but out of the four it is the most hyped by society and usually the least important one.
The ideal scenario is when you love what you do, you are present, feel satisfied, fit and energised most of the time and make good money too. Perhaps life needs to be lived in the moment as much as possible by doing energy enhancing and soul elevating activities.
And society? Hard working, dedicated people are needed to build the goods and provide the services we all rely on (and sometimes really need). Being a contributing part of society can be very fulfilling and it is mostly necessary. We can choose to adapt to a structure largely imposed and strongly endorsed by family, school, colleagues, media and institutions or create our own framework, a way to live closer to our own terms. If we fail to do that, we might end up stressed, depleted, unfit, old and cash poor. America, the world leader and trend setter and thus the most culturally important society on Earth, is a country of tired, overweight and overwhelmed people, according to various research and commentaries, with 69% of adults with less than $1,000 in saving accounts or 46% with less than $400 to cover an emergency. Or to say it bluntly, a society of fat, broke and busy, according to a book and this easy to watch TED talk.