7 Ways To Inject Meaning Into Your Life—Part 7
7 Ways To Inject Meaning Into Your Life—Part 6
April 15, 2022
7 Ways To Inject Meaning Into Your Life—Part 8
April 21, 2022
I saw a write-up making rounds in my social media groups this morning. It was about mortality. The writer posits that we seldom think about our great grandparents and their meaning in life. In other words, a few years after we are gone from this world, we are forgotten.
Perspective comes to us at the time we are dying. We wonder whether the life we lived had any form of meaning. At that menacing end of our lives, we realize that some or most of the things we did, we shouldn’t have done and most of the things we didn’t do, we should have. It is so sinister a realization of meaning or lack of it thereof because it comes at the very end.
Recap
If we are to inject purpose into life, there are several things that we need to put into perspective. In the previous articles, we have looked at the following things that we can do to inject meaning into our existence:
5. Review
Injecting meaning into our lives is not done automatically. A friend of mine says that the default mode for the human is drifting and not growing. In other words, if we are going to inject meaning into our lives, we must be intentional about it. It will not happen by itself.
“If we are going to inject meaning into our lives, we must be intentional about it. It will not happen by itself.feel like I’m being useful to the planet.”
— Lawrence Namale
Earlier, I have posited that the regrets that come into our lives are so late on that we have nothing we can do about them. We might not have the chance to add meaning to our lives on our deathbeds or in the twilight of our lives. But then again, you need to ask yourself this: Is it true that this realization comes late on?
A Silent Call To Meaning
The truth of the matter is that there is a whisper in our hearts in the distant benign always prodding us gently towards our purpose and meaning in life. However, we have learned to be so adept at turning that voice off and filling our lives with other things
That’s why you will notice that a deliberate review of our lives will most certainly amplify the voice of meaning in our lives. If we take time to take stock of what we have been up to in our lives, we get great insights and firsthand information from our very lives, hearts, spirit, and core about how we have responded to meaning in our lives.
“If we take time to take stock of what we have been up to in our lives, we get great insights and firsthand information from our very lives, hearts, spirit, and core about how we have responded to meaning in our lives.”
— Lawrence Namale
Reviewing For Meaning
Therefore, a review shouldn’t be done only by corporate organizations quarterly. It must be something that a person who wants to inject meaning into their lives does weekly. The best way to review our lives is to place mortality right in front of us. Knowing that we will die at some point in time should force us to ask meaning-related questions about our existence.
A review should help us bring the day of our burial closer so that we can do something about it. Naturally, we push that day so far away. We think that it is always others that will die. Death lingers around us but somehow, we have this hope that it will not touch us. For as long as we feel safe from death, we become lackadaisical with life and don’t care about its meaning.
“For as long as we feel safe from death, we become lackadaisical with life and don’t care about its meaning.”
— Lawrence Namale
Awakened To Meaning
However, when death knocks on the door, it has a way of removing every single thing that is meaningless from our lives. When you are aware of your death soon, perspective comes into your life. Meaning is injected into it instantly. If you talked to people who are terminally ill or interviewed the elderly in the twilight of their lives, you will get answers concerning meaning in life.
To be honest, your meaning in life must be different from mine. However, you will notice that there are some similarities. For instance, we will find that meaning revolves around our impact, contribution, growth, and transformation in life. It will seldom be about ourselves and what we amassed.
Steve Jobs said about death:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall always in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.”
— Steve Jobs
Given that we are adept at putting death out of our minds, it is important that we learned to review our lives for meaning. We need to have a mechanism perhaps each week and we use a particular tool of questions and answers that will force us to think seriously about our purpose and inject meaning into our lives.
A Weekly Review
This should not be something that we only do at the beginning of the year. It must be something that we are consciously doing each week and in so doing we tend to eliminate the things that do not have meaning in our lives. Use the following questions to review your life to inject meaning therein:
- Was that the best that I am capable of that I have done this week? What can I do better?
- In what ways have I grown and been better this week? What can I do in the coming week?
- In what ways have I dared to do the impossible this week?
- What is the condition of the close relationships that I have in my life? What can be done to make them better?
- What have I done that contributes to my core work this week?
- In what ways have I been impactful, transformational, and contributed positively to society?
- On a scale of one to ten, how do I measure in terms of exploiting all the potential that has been put inside of me?
Just these questions are enough to help you get enough insight that you can use to inject meaning into your life.
