“Life has meaning only if you do something that is meaningful to you.” ~ Anonymous

 

Some days life doesn’t make sense to me. I wake up feeling utterly useless and I feel as if nothing makes sense.

I have this looming voice in my head that keeps asking me, “What’s the point?”

In the past, I would get into a debate with it, fight it, and try every trick in the book to drown it out. All of it would leave me anxious, exhausted, and drained.

Now, I’ve become friends with it. I know that this voice pops up every time it thinks that I need a little kick in the right direction—when it sees that I’m spending my time and energy on things, people, and events that are draining me. It serves as a reminder that I need to take a stock of what’s happening internally and externally and set things right.

It brings to light this awareness that with each passing moment I need to be more attuned to who I am, what I stand for, and what helps me to make my life a little more meaningful.

This sense of meaninglessness that I used to dread has now come to be my best friend.

But meeting and interacting with this best friend of mine is not easy by any means. It always brings with itself these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that demand a lot from me. Whenever I come face to face with it, it feels like someone smacked me on my nose. That hurts.

And it’s only when I’ve sat enough with these feelings that I’m able to detangle the knots within and create something meaningful for myself.

Maybe this act of finding meaning is not about creating something huge or something that’s visible to the world. Maybe it’s just about creating. Just like every drop makes up an entire ocean, it’s the small moments filled with meaning, joy, satisfaction, and alignment that make up a meaningful life.

It’s about creating now. This moment is all that we have. Our life is and will always be a sum total of the meaning that we choose to ascribe to it; the meanings can change or we can have more than one.

Today, a sense of creation is what is giving meaning to my life. It may be something else tomorrow.

What matters is that each day we have something that keeps us going despite the boulders that may be in our way. There is something that gets us going and makes us feel we’re alive.

And on the days when the voice asks “What’s the point of all this?” we can get ourselves to sit down with it and have a nice, little, friendly chat.

It’s not about making it go away. Perhaps, it’s about looking at it as a little nudge to simply change course.

“To live is the rarest thing on Earth. Most people just exist, that’s all.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Here are six things to keep in mind when we feel gripped by a sense of meaninglessness:

1. Introspect. How have you been feeling lately? What’s missing in your life? What are you dissatisfied with? Usually, this sense comes to us as a wake up call to let us know that something in our life is not working.

2. Allow. Allow the thoughts and feelings to come up and flow out without any judgement. We’re only human and life may not make sense all the time.

3. Acknowledge. Acknowledge what’s not working and figure out ways to change course. Sometimes, one or more areas of our life may need some tweaking or may be an overhaul. Other times, a part of us may be asking for more connection, and maybe, it’s a call for more adventure.

4. Connect. Connect with people, places, and activities that help you relax, ease out, feel loved, and cared for or even pep you up.

5. Turn your self-care up a notch. These days can be difficult. You may feel particularly low, sad, demotivated, melancholic, and that’s the time when you need your own tender love and care the most!

6. Drop the struggle. The struggle of fitting in, doing more, being a certain way, and allow yourself to just be. Let down your guard, take off the mask, and dive within. Use these moments to connect with yourself a little more.

And at the end of the day, remind yourself that life is not about finding something. There is no treasure at the end of the tunnel. It’s about living the best way you can amidst the light and the dark, and it’s about living it now.

So, what will you do to come closer to the sense of meaning in your life?

As I write this, I am creating a vision for my life—one that fuels me with a sense of purpose.

What about you?

“Life begins when we decide it’s going to begin for us.” ~ Shah Rukh Khan

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