Towards A Meaningful Life Quotes

According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)

Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example, unless you enter the individual’s world by finding out at least one thing that is meaningful to his or her life and exchange at lest one genuine feeling. Tuning in to others is a circular flow: you send yourself out toward people; you receive them as they respond to you.

When [what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at and what drives your economic engine] come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.

Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.

What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. It is that synthesizing spirit, that "shaping" force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine.

The best countries—and the best societies—are those where citizens are virtuous enough to sacrifice for the common good but unwilling to be forced to sacrifice for the “greater” good. Flourishing societies require a functional social fabric, created by citizens working together—and yes, separately—toward a meaningful life.

The shorter we think our lives will be, the more likely we are to do things that are meaningful and give us pleasure. Awareness of death catapults us toward joy and reflection.

And how meaningful Beckett's admonition is to me today: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Rilke's paradoxical words also draw me onward still toward the unlived life that haunts all of us. Our task, he writes, is to be 'continuously defeated by ever-larger things.

Bushwhacking through unchartered territory is how you discover who you are and what you’re here for. Getting lost is how you find your way. There is no other way.

one of the most painful things in life is to be considered as meaningless in an environment where you think you are truly meaningful

Your purpose is not what you do for money, it's what you do with all the love you have in your heart- something that lights you up from the inside and stays alight.

I stand amazed at this tree, this life. I stare up in awe at its branches, raising up toward heaven. I wonder about its origins, how a seed so miniscule could grow into a structure so vast and resilient. I'm still examining its genesis. To examine, to question, to discover and evolve--that is what it means to be alive. The day we cease to explore is the day we begin to wilt. I share my testimony in these pages not because I have reached any lasting conclusions, but because I have so much to understand. I am as inquisitive about life now as I was as a child. My story will never be finished, nor should it be. For as long as God grants me breath, I will be living--and writing--my next chapter.

Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood, Yet, what a real living human being is made of seems to be less understood today than at any time before, and men - each one of whom represents a unique and valuable experiment on the part of nature - are therefore shot wholesale nowadays. If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.

As time went by, I realized that the particular place I'd chose was less important than the fact that I'd chosen a place and focused my life around it. Although the island has taken on great significance for me, it's no more inherently beautiful or meaningful than any other place on earth. What makes a place special is the way it buries itself inside the heart, not whether it's flat or rugged, rich or austere. wet or arid, gentle or harsh, warm or cold, wild or tame. Every place, like every person, is elevated by the love and respect shown toward it, and by the way in which its bounty is received.

Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it... Usually, that child is a wretchedly isolated undeveloped little being. It’s been protected by the efficient armour, it’s never participated in life, it’s never been exposed to living and to managing the person’s affairs, it’s never been given responsibility for taking the brunt. And it’s never properly lived. That’s how it is in almost everybody. And that little creature is sitting there, behind the armour, peering through the slits. And in its own self, it is still unprotected, incapable, inexperienced... And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It’s their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can’t understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That’s the carrier of all the living qualities. It’s the centre of all the possible magic and revelation. What doesn’t come out of that creature isn’t worth having, or it’s worth having only as a tool—for that creature to use and turn to account and make meaningful... And so, wherever life takes it by surprise, and suddenly the artificial self of adaptations proves inadequate, and fails to ward off the invasion of raw experience, that inner self is thrown into the front line—unprepared, with all its childhood terrors round its ears. And yet that’s the moment it wants. That’s where it comes alive—even if only to be overwhelmed and bewildered and hurt. And that’s where it calls up its own resources—not artificial aids, picked up outside, but real inner resources, real biological ability to cope, and to turn to account, and to enjoy. That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self—struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence—you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself.

The search for meaning in our lives takes us on paths large and small. When we go beyond ourselves-whether in forgiveness, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, generosity and understanding toward others-we enter into the spiritual realm of meaning. By giving beyond ourselves, we make our own lives richer. This is a truth long understood at the heart of all meaningful spiritual traditions. It's a mystery that can only be experienced. And when we do experience it, we are in the heart of meaning. We are no longer a prisoner of our thoughts.

Martin Seligman, a leading expert on positive psychology, differentiates between three states of happiness: the pleasurable life (hedonistic, superficial), the good life (family and friends) and the meaningful life (finding purpose, transcending ego, working toward a higher good). Research shows that Millennials—those born between 1984 and 2002—are showing an orientation towards seeking meaning and purpose in their lives.

He told me that while he was in a Chinese Communist gulag for almost eighteen years, he faced danger on a few occasions. I thought he was referencing a threat to his own life. But when I asked, "What danger?" he answered, "Losing compassion toward the Chinese.

The desire to make art begins early. Among the very young this is encouraged (or at least indulged as harmless) but the push toward a 'serious' education soon exacts a heavy toll on dreams and fantasies....Yet for some the desire persists, and sooner or later must be addressed. And with good reason: your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are. Life and Art, once entwined, can quickly become inseparable; at age ninety Frank Lloyd Wright was still designing, Imogen Cunningham still photographing, Stravinsky still composing, Picasso still painting. But if making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you're not up to the task -- that you can't do it, or can't do it well, or can't do it again; or that you're not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have no talent, or have nothing to say. The line between the artist and his/her work is a fine one at best, and for the artist it feels (quite naturally) like there is no such line. Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be. For many people, that alone is enough to prevent their ever getting started at all -- and for those who do, trouble isn't long in coming. Doubts, in fact, soon rise in swarms: "I am not an artist -- I am a phony. I have nothing worth saying. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Other people are better than I am. I'm only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever]. I've never had a real exhibit. No one understands my work. No one likes my work. I'm no good. Yet viewed objectively, these fears obviously have less to do with art than they do with the artist. And even less to do with the individual artworks. After all, in making art you bring your highest skills to bear upon the materials and ideas you most care about. Art is a high calling -- fears are coincidental. Coincidental, sneaky and disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others -- indeed anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test.

Attitude then is the lubricant that makes the imperfect fit of the complex system that is the individual work more smoothly with the complex system that is the world.

Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.

Every day is an opportunity to stand in awe when witnessing the overpowering presence of nature, an apt time to pay reverence for the inestimable beauty of life. I must remain mindful to live in an ethical manner by paying attention to the threat of injustice towards other people and resist capitulating to the absurdity of being a finite body born into infinite space and time. I am part of the world, a spar in a sacred composition, a body of energy suspended in the cosmos. I seek to create a poetic personal testament to life. When I pivot and turn away from fixating upon the cruel artifices of my encysted orbit to face and outwardly embrace the cleansing swirl of heaven’s windmill, I feel gusting in the shank of my marrow the thump of onrushing primordial truths, the electric flush of those ineffable couplets of life that one may not utter.

The healthy, dynamic, and above all else truthful personality will admit to error. It will voluntarily shed—let die—outdated perceptions, thoughts, and habits, as impediments to its further success and growth. This is the soul that will let its old beliefs burn away, often painfully, so that it can live again, and move forward, renewed. This is also the soul that will transmit what it has learned during that process of death and rebirth, so that others can be reborn along with it. Aim at something. Pick the best target you can currently conceptualize. Stumble toward it. Notice your errors and misconceptions along the way, face them, and correct them. Get your story straight. Past, present, future—they all matter. You need to map your path. You need to know where you were, so that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past. You need to know where you are, or you will not be able to draw a line from your starting point to your destination. You need to know where you are going, or you will drown in uncertainty, unpredictability, and chaos, and starve for hope and inspiration. For better or worse, you are on a journey. You are having an adventure—and your map better be accurate. Voluntarily confront what stands in your way. The way—that is the path of life, the meaningful path of life, the straight and narrow path that constitutes the very border between order and chaos, and the traversing of which brings them into balance. Aim at something profound and noble and lofty. If you can find a better path along the way, once you have started moving forward, then switch course. Be

Many of us are speeding up and skipping over, missing the important as we scan for the urgent. The irony is that in our anxiety toward not missing out, we are losing the most meaningful moments of life.

Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child's face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment "seen" that everything which is good, is loved and lovable, loved by God! Such certainties all mean, at bottom, one and the same thing: that the world is plumb and sound; that everything comes to its appointed goal; that in spite of all appearances, underlying all things is - peace, salvation, gloria; that nothing and no one is lost; that "God holds in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is." Such nonrational, intuitive certainties of the divine base of all that is can be vouchsafed to our gaze even when it is turned toward the most insignificant-looking things, if only it is a gaze inspired by love. That, in the precise sense, is contemplation... Out of this kind of contemplation of the created world arise in never-ending wealth all true poetry and all real art, for it is the nature of poetry and art to be paean and praise heard above all the wails of lamentation. No one who is not capable of such contemplation can grasp poetry in a poetic fashion, that is to say, in the only meaningful fashion. The indispensability, the vital function of the arts in man's life, consists above all in this: that through them contemplation of the created world is kept alive and active.

I think it is cruel to expect the constant presence of any one family member (to tend to the ill). Just as we have to breathe in and breathe out, people have to "recharge their batteries" outside the sickroom at times, live a normal life from time to time; we cannot function efficiently in the constant awareness of illness. I have heard many relatives complain that members of the family went on pleasure trips over weekends or continued to go to the theater or movie. They blamed them for enjoying things while someone at home was terminally ill. I think it is more meaningful for the patient and his family to see that the illness does not totally disrupt a household or completely deprive all members of any pleasurable activities; rather, the illness may allow for a gradual adjustment and change toward the kind of home it is going to be when the patient is no longer around...The family too has a need to deny or avoid the sad realities at times in order to face them better when their presence is really needed.

And ultimately, every effort does bear fruit.

Wherever you go, whomever you meet, look for an opportunity to help, to inspire, to lend support.

These scientific studies countervail the influential claims of the Kants, Nietzsches, and Rands about the nature of human goodness. Compassion is not a blind emotions that catapults people pell-mell toward the next warm body that walks by. Instead, compassion is exquisitely attuned to harm and vulnerability in others. Compassion does not render people tearful idlers, moral weaklings, or passive onlookers but individuals who will take on the pain of others, even when given the chance to skip out on such difficult action or in anonymous conditions. The kindness, sacrifice, and jen that make up healthy communities are rooted in a bundle of nerves that has been producing caretaking behavior for over 100 million years of mammalian evolution.

About how, as we approach the end of our life, we find ourselves turning toward the things and people that are most meaningful to us so that we may face death with equanimity and courage.

When I was a young woman with four children, I was always living ahead of myself,” she said. “Everything I was doing was projected toward the future, and I was so busy, busy, busy, preparing for tomorrow, for the next week, for the next month. Then one day, it all changed. At thirty-eight years old, I found I had breast cancer. I can remember asking my doctor what I should plan for in my future. He said, ‘Diane, my advice to you is to live each day as richly as you can.’ As I lay in my bed after he left, I thought, will I be alive next year to take my son to first grade? Will I see my children marry? And will I know the joy of holding my grandchildren?” She looked out over the water, barefoot, her legs outstretched; a white visor held down her short, black hair. “For the first time in my life, I started to be fully present in the day I was living. I was alive. My goals were no longer long-range plans, they were daily goals, much more meaningful to me because at the end of each day, I could evaluate what I had done.

Yes, we do need love just as we need food and water, but there is a difference. Food and water are elements of the earth that sustain our physical bodies, whereas love is the language of G-d, which sustains our soul.

Nature’s ultimate goal is to foster the growth of the individual from absolute dependence to independence — or, more exactly, to the interdependence of mature adults living in community. Development is a process of moving from complete external regulation to self-regulation, as far as our genetic programming allows. Well-self-regulated people are the most capable of interacting fruitfully with others in a community and of nurturing children who will also grow into self-regulated adults. Anything that interferes with that natural agenda threatens the organism’s chances for long-term survival. Almost from the beginning of life we see a tension between the complementary needs for security and for autonomy. Development requires a gradual and ageappropriate shift from security needs toward the drive for autonomy, from attachment to individuation. Neither is ever completely lost, and neither is meant to predominate at the expense of the other. With an increased capacity for self-regulation in adulthood comes also a heightened need for autonomy — for the freedom to make genuine choices. Whatever undermines autonomy will be experienced as a source of stress. Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices — in other words, when autonomy is undermined. Autonomy, however, needs to be exercised in a way that does not disrupt the social relationships on which survival also depends, whether with emotional intimates or with important others—employers, fellow workers, social authority figures. The less the emotional capacity for self-regulation develops during infancy and childhood, the more the adult depends on relationships to maintain homeostasis. The greater the dependence, the greater the threat when those relationships are lost or become insecure. Thus, the vulnerability to subjective and physiological stress will be proportionate to the degree of emotional dependence. To minimize the stress from threatened relationships, a person may give up some part of his autonomy. However, this is not a formula for health, since the loss of autonomy is itself a cause of stress. The surrender of autonomy raises the stress level, even if on the surface it appears to be necessary for the sake of “security” in a relationship, and even if we subjectively feel relief when we gain “security” in this manner. If I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself “acceptable” to other people, I increase my risks of having to pay the price in the form of illness. The other way of protecting oneself from the stress of threatened relationships is emotional shutdown. To feel safe, the vulnerable person withdraws from others and closes against intimacy. This coping style may avoid anxiety and block the subjective experience of stress but not the physiology of it. Emotional intimacy is a psychological and biological necessity. Those who build walls against intimacy are not self-regulated, just emotionally frozen. Their stress from having unmet needs will be high.

HOW DO YOU LIVE A MEANINGFUL DAY? When you awake in the morning, while you are still lying in bed, think for a moment: What does it mean to be awake and alive? Begin each day with a prayer; thank G-d for the new day. Acknowledge your soul and the vibrancy and fortitude it provides. Think about what you would like to accomplish that would make today a meaningful day. Train yourself to do this every morning and you will begin to see your life in a new, sharper focus.

Purpose and desire can seem similar, but they are very different, sometimes even opposing forces. Desire is personal, narrow, and pointed, and tends toward self-preservation, self-gratification, and short-term gains and pleasures. Purpose is wider, broader, a longer-term vision encompassing the benefit of others—something outside of yourself you’re willing to fight for. There have been many times in my life where I was acting from a place of desire but I’d fully convinced myself that it was purpose. Desire is what you want; purpose is the flowering of what you are. Desire tends to weaken over time, whereas purpose strengthens the more you lean into it. Desire can be depleting because it’s insatiable; purpose is empowering—it’s a stronger engine. Purpose has a way of contextualizing life’s unavoidable sufferings and making them meaningful and worthwhile. As Viktor Frankl wrote, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

(Speaking about ponies engaging in a game of running around and chasing a ball with "imaginary riders") Along with everything else about it, it seemed to be a parable for life. Going forwards and backwards and round in circles, striving ever forward only to have to run like crazy backwards to get the ball again, realizing that your enemy is after the same goal and you're actually helping him toward it and getting roughed up and possibly killed while you're at it but still feeling the comradeship of being in the game all together.

A true leader does not seek followers; he wants to teach others how to be leaders. He does not want control; he wants the truth. He does not impose his leadership on others, nor does he take away anyone’s autonomy. He inspires by love, not coercion. When it comes time to take credit, he makes himself invisible; but he is the first to arrive at the time of need, and he will never shrink away in fear. He is so passionate about your welfare that when you consult him for guidance, it is like coming face to face with yourself for the first time.

And how meaningful Beckett's admonition is to me today: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Rilke's paradoxical words also draw me onward still toward the unlived life that haunts all of us. Our task, he writes, is to be 'continuously defeated by ever-larger things.' 145

Moments of pride commemorate people’s achievements. We feel our chest puff out and our chin lift. 2. There are three practical principles we can use to create more moments of pride: (1) Recognize others; (2) Multiply meaningful milestones; (3) Practice courage. The first principle creates defining moments for others; the latter two allow us to create defining moments for ourselves. 3. We dramatically underinvest in recognition. • Researcher Wiley: 80% of supervisors say they frequently express appreciation, while less than 20% of employees agree. 4. Effective recognition is personal, not programmatic. (“ Employee of the Month” doesn’t cut it.) • Risinger at Eli Lilly used “tailored rewards” (e.g., Bose headphones) to show his team: I saw what you did and I appreciate it. 5. Recognition is characterized by a disjunction: A small investment of effort yields a huge reward for the recipient. • Kira Sloop, the middle school student, had her life changed by a music teacher who told her that her voice was beautiful. 6. To create moments of pride for ourselves, we should multiply meaningful milestones—reframing a long journey so that it features many “finish lines.” • The author Kamb planned ways to “level up”—for instance “Learn how to play ‘Concerning Hobbits’ from The Fellowship of the Ring”—toward his long-term goal of mastering the fiddle.

a new faith is to capture our imagination, it must be one that will account rationally for the things we know, the things we feel, the things we hope for, and the ones we dread. It must be a system of beliefs that will marshal our psychic energy toward meaningful goals, a system that provides rules for a way of life that can provide flow.

Future generations will look back at the time we are living in now. The kind of future they look from, and the story they tell about our period, will be shaped by choices we make in our lifetimes. The most telling choice of all may well be the story we live from and see ourselves participating in. It sets the context of our lives in a way that influences all our other decisions. In choosing our story, we not only cast our vote of influence over the kind of world future generations inherit, but we also affect our own lives in the here and now. When we find a good story and fully give ourselves to it, that story can act through us, breathing new life into everything we do. When we move in a direction that touches our heart, we add to the momentum of deeper purpose that makes us feel more alive. A great story and a satisfying life share a vital element: a compelling plot that moves toward meaningful goals, where what is at stake is far larger than our personal gains and losses. The Great Turning is such a story.

The unexpected parallelisms of ideas in psychology and physics suggest, as Jung pointed out, a possible ultimate one-ness of both fields of reality that physics and psychology study-i.e., a psychophysical one-ness of both fields of reality that physics and psychology study-i.e., a psychophysical one-ness of all life phenomena. Jung was even convinced that what he calls the unconscious somehow links up with the structure of inorganic matter-a link to which the problem of so-called "psychosomatic" illness seems to point. The concept of a unitarian idea of reality (which has been followed up by Pauli and Erich Nuemann) was called by Jung the unus mundus (the one world, within which matter and psyche are not yet discriminated or separately actualized). He paved the way toward such a unitarian point of view by pointing out that an archetype shows a "psychoid" (i.e., not purely psychic but almost material) aspect when it appears within a synchronistic event-for such an event is in effect a meaningful arrangement of inner psychic and outer facts.

Eric Greitens says that there are three primary forms of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and the happiness of excellence5. He compares them to the primary colors, the basis on which the entire spectrum is created. The happiness of pleasure is largely sensory. It’s a good meal when you’re hungry, the smell of air after it rains, waking up warm and cozy in your bed. The happiness of grace is gratitude. It’s looking over to see the love of your life sleeping next to you and whispering, “thank you.” It’s taking inventory of what you do have. It’s when you speak to something greater than yourself, expressing humility and awe. And then there is the happiness of excellence. The kind of happiness that comes from the pursuit of something great. Not the moment you arrive at the top of the mountain and raise your fists in victory, but the process of falling in love with the hike. It is meaningful work. It is flow. It is the purpose that sears identity and builds character and channels our energy toward something greater than the insatiable, daily pursuit of our fleeting desires.

Finally, and most important, I told those gathered in the church that Walter had taught me that mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion. Walter genuinely forgave the people who unfairly accused him, the people who convicted him, and the people who judged him unworthy of mercy. And in the end, it was just mercy toward others that allowed him to recover a life worth celebrating, a life that rediscovered the love and freedom that all humans desire, a life that overcame death and condemnation until it was time to die on God’s schedule.

In thirty years, the narratives of my sons will be different from mine. Because today I am telling my truth and standing in a pool of my trauma, making myself uncomfortable and, hopefully, making you uncomfortable too. Today, I am making it known that when color is clear, when race and inequity are not ignored, and when our differences are not only acknowledged but championed as one of the most valuable aspects of life, we can work together to make meaningful strides toward true social justice.

While I enjoy the work because of my love of mathematics, I luckily realized that this career path was simply designed to exploit inefficiencies in markets in order to extract profits from others. This financial realm known as trading is a zero-sum game where for every dollar you make, someone else loses a dollar, and I know I’m not destined to become such an obvious parasite on society. I only aspire to lead a meaningful, impactful life where I can apply my skills as an extremely analytical individual toward the benefit of humanity. I’m

An artist adopts a radically different view regarding the importance of time than a businessperson does. Instead of perceiving time as a merchantable facet doled out incrementally according to marketplace demands, an artist portrays time as an agent of destruction. The irrevocability of time frames the human condition. Time might the medium of all human experience, but its passage obscures and eventually obliterates all human endeavors. Time unchecked leads to a blank slate of nothingness. Time’s destructive march towards meaningless is arrested through memory and art depicting humankind’s struggles and accomplishments.

In choosing our story, we not only cast our vote of influence over the kind of world future generations inherit, but we also affect our own lives in the here and now. When we find a good story and fully give ourselves to it, that story can act through us, breathing new life into everything we do. When we move in a direction that touches our heart, we add to the momentum of deeper purpose that makes us feel more alive. A great story and a satisfying life share a vital element: a compelling plot that moves toward meaningful goals, where what is at stake is far larger than our personal gains and losses. The Great Turning is such a story.

It had all begun on the elevated. There was a particular little sea of roots he had grown into the habit of glancing at just as the packed car carrying him homeward lurched around a turn. A dingy, melancholy little world of tar paper, tarred gravel, and smoky brick. Rusty tin chimneys with odd conical hats suggested abandoned listening posts. There was a washed-out advertisement of some ancient patent medicine on the nearest wall. Superficially it was like ten thousand other drab city roofs. But he always saw it around dusk, either in the normal, smoky half-light, or tinged with red by the flat rays of a dirty sunset, or covered by ghostly windblown white sheets of rain-splash, or patched with blackish snow; and it seemed unusually bleak and suggestive, almost beautifully ugly, though in no sense picturesque; dreary but meaningful. Unconsciously it came to symbolize for Catesby Wran certain disagreeable aspects of the frustrated, frightened century in which he lived, the jangled century of hate and heavy industry and Fascist wars. The quick, daily glance into the half darkness became an integral part of his life. Oddly, he never saw it in the morning, for it was then his habit to sit on the other side of the car, his head buried in the paper. One evening toward winter he noticed what seemed to be a shapeless black sack lying on the third roof from the tracks. He did not think about it. It merely registered as an addition to the well-known scene and his memory stored away the impression for further reference. Next evening, however, he decided he had been mistaken in one detail. The object was a roof nearer than he had thought. Its color and texture, and the grimy stains around it, suggested that it was filled with coal dust, which was hardly reasonable. Then, too, the following evening it seemed to have been blown against a rusty ventilator by the wind, which could hardly have happened if it were at all heavy. ("Smoke Ghost")

When Amabile analyzed the data, she came to a clear conclusion about one key factor: workers are happiest—and most motivated—when they feel that they accomplish something meaningful at work. These accomplishments do not need to be major breakthroughs: incremental but noticeable progress toward a goal was enough to make her subjects feel good. As one programmer described it, “I smashed that [computer] bug that’s been frustrating me for almost a calendar week. That may not be an event to you, but I live a very drab life, so I’m all hyped.”1 The lesson here is that managers can get the most out of their employees by helping them achieve meaningful progress every day.

When you reclaim your focus and use it to achieve your biggest goals, you can transform your life radically. You can make more money by channeling your focus into great work, and you can increase your well-being by redirecting it toward more meaningful activities (i.e., spending time with your family and friends or engaging in your favorite hobbies). Here’s my point. The world is working against you. There will always be someone trying to grab your attention. As such, you have two choices. You can protect your focus by building habits and systems, or you can remain unprepared and let anyone distract you from the important things you should be doing with your time.

Choices come in all flavors: the good, the bad, the big, the small, the happy, and the hard choices to name but a few. We can make these choices carelessly, or we can make them with intention. But what does that mean? What does it mean to live an intentional life? The philosopher David Bentley Hart defines intentionality as “the fundamental power of the mind to direct itself toward something . . . a specific object, purpose, or end.”7 The term hails from medieval scholastic philosophy, so I’d like to adapt and update it a bit for our purposes: Intentionality is the power of the mind to direct itself toward that which it finds meaningful and take action toward that end.

Intellectual chit-chat is thus replaced by meaningful events that occur in the reality of the psyche. Hence, for the individual to enter seriously into the process of individuation in the way that has been outlined means a completely new and different orientation toward life. For scientists it also means a new and different scientific approach to outer facts. How this will work out in the field of human knowledge and in the social life of human beings cannot be predicted. But to me it seems certain that Jung’s discovery of the process of individuation is a fact that future generations will have to take into account if they want to avoid drifting into a stagnant or even regressive outlook.

All human beings are driven by "an inner compulsion to understand the world as a meaningful cosmos and to take a position toward it." And that goes for suffering, too...."Human beings apparently want to be edified by their miseries." Sociologist Peter Berger writes, every culture has provided an "explanation of human events that bestows meaning upon the experiences of suffering and evil." Notice Berger did not say people are taught that suffering itself is good or meaningful. What Berger means rather is that it is important for people to see how the experience of suffering does not have to be a waste, and could be a meaningful though painful way to live life well. Because of this deep human "inner compulsion," every culture either must help its people face suffering or risk a loss of credibility. When no explanation at all is given- when suffering is perceived as simply senseless, a complete waste, and inescapable- victims can develop a deep, undying anger and poisonous hate called ressentiment by Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, and others. This ressentiment can lead to serious social instability. And so, to use sociological language, every society must provide a discourse through which its people can make sense of suffering. That discourse includes some understanding of the causes of pain as well as the proper responses to it. And with that discourse, a society equips its people for the battles of living in this world.

Our ability to detect and measure the passage of time is burdensome. The conception and sensation of time bears down upon all of us. It weighs us down; it compresses our souls. There is a variety of ways to escape the dull passage of time or the fearfulness of our accelerating march towards death. We must choose our mechanisms for dealing with the inexorability of time and our finiteness. We can fill our void with work or pleasure, laughter or pain, and fretfulness or courage. We can seek a sense of purposefulness or acknowledge the meaninglessness of life. We can seek to escape the drudgery and pain of life through alcohol, drugs, or pleasure seeking, or by working to support our families and create artistic testaments to our worldly existence.

The less you sleep, the more you are likely to eat. In addition, your body becomes unable to manage those calories effectively, especially the concentrations of sugar in your blood. In these two ways, sleeping less than seven or eight hours a night will increase your probability of gaining weight, being overweight, or being obese, and significantly increases your likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. The global health cost of diabetes is $375 billion a year. That of obesity is more than $2 trillion. Yet for the under-slept individual, the cost to health, quality of life, and a hastened arrival of death are more meaningful. Precisely how a lack of sleep sets you on a path toward diabetes and leads to obesity is now well understood and incontrovertible.

Does your life feel authentically your own?" Dr. B asked during a session. "I'm not even sure I know what that means," I said, increasingly annoyed by our discussions...I longed for a more meaningful life but couldn't begin to articulate what I meant by this. I felt tyrannized by my desire to be elsewhere and awash in guilt at the thought... "It means you're aware of how you are feeling and have chosen the path you're on." ...I was trying to picture what mattered to me - what was the life I wanted to live? I thought of books, close friends, and conversations that skewed toward life's bigger questions. These were the things I truly cared about...I blinked. I'd done it. Somehow, I'd penetrated the looking glass and briefly imagined the life I wanted. It wasn't so hard to envision at all.

People often run toward what they imagine is pragmatic, because it all seems so tangible. A good job, a steady income, a 401k, health benefits. But when you've seen that all disappear, you realize those things are more ephemeral than they seem. They have no meaning beyond their economic worth. Music or art, on the other hand, felt meaningful to me by virtue of their mere existence. Art doesn't need accountants or balance sheets to validate it. It just is. If I write a song, or I hear a song that makes me feel something, that's the whole fruit and its seed. It doesn't matter what else happens or doesnt happen with that song, it doesnt matter who buys it or who hears it. The way it makes ME feel, the way it makes someone else feel, is the whole fucking point. Coming to understand this, changed my life. Music liberated me, and in the face of that, who really gave a shit what happened to my software company.

But imagine then, my little one, a state of being truly lonely, in which you don’t know anyone, don’t talk to anyone, and where nobody sees you, they merely look away. Such absolute loneliness would be impossible to live in, for why would one go on living at all? Everything within us is directed towards others. Language is directed towards others, and with it our thoughts, and with them, as the innermost existential truth, also the self. As long as the self exists in a space where there are others, even if only in the form of a voice on the radio, a face on TV, a narrator in a book, there is meaning, it can lead a meaningful life. But because the self is structured as an address to someone else, if it is deprived of others it can only be maintained by the will, and since the will of the self is merely the will for there to be others, sooner or later, if not even the slightest hope remains, the self will be extinguished.

I don’t expect you to know what the future is going to bring,” I told him. “And I’m not asking for a commitment right now. But I do want to know if it’s possible for us to be something long term. If it’s not a possibility, I’m not interested in doing this.” Chris didn’t answer right away, but when he did, his answer was perfect. “I love you,” he said. “And I don’t want to spend a day of my life without you.” Whoa! Whoa? Instead of feeling happy and confident, I suddenly felt something like fear. In my mind, what he was saying was that he wanted to marry me. Was I ready for that? No. But I loved that I heard that he wanted to marry me and was so confident and open about it. I quickly warmed up to the idea. But as the days and then weeks went by, I began to wonder. Did his answer really mean he wanted to get married? We didn’t talk about it, and our relationship didn’t change in any meaningful way. So, were we headed toward marriage, or not?

In Erikson’s words: “A meaningful old age…serves the need for that integrated heritage which gives indispensable perspective on the life cycle. Strength here takes the form of that detached yet active concern with life bounded with death, which we call wisdom…” The notion of integrity connotes the ability to tie together, to relate to others outside oneself. Erikson thought that the perspective of an older person is based on a new definition of identity, which could be summarized in the sentence “I am what survives me.” If toward the end of life I conclude that nothing of myself is likely to survive, despair is likely to take over. But if I have identified with some more enduring entities, my survival will provide a sense of connection, of continuity, that keeps despair at bay. If I love my grandchildren, or the work I have accomplished, or the causes I have championed, then I am bound to feel a part of the future even after personal death. Jonas Salk calls this attitude “being a good ancestor.

4. Your Ability to Self-Protect The ability to sense danger in your surroundings or untrustworthiness in other people depends on how well you listen to your gut feelings. To detect threat, you have to be aware of how situations and interactions make you feel. The primal instincts of the inner world are crucial to your safety. 5. Your Awareness of Your Life’s Purpose A good relationship with your inner world reveals what’s meaningful to you and directs your life’s purpose. If you don’t form that trusting relationship with your inner world, you will be dependent on whatever your peers, the culture, or authorities tell you to be. In part II of this book, you will learn more specific ways to get to know your inner world and how to engage in this process more deeply. EIPs’ Attitudes Toward Your Inner World Now let’s look at how EIPs view your inner world. Understanding EI parents’ attitudes toward your inner experiences will help you trust yourself instead of deferring to them. They See You as Still Needing Their Direction EI parents see their adult children as

The analogy that has helped me most is this: in Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of boat-owners rescued people—single moms, toddlers, grandfathers—stranded in attics, on roofs, in flooded housing projects, hospitals, and school buildings. None of them said, I can’t rescue everyone, therefore it’s futile; therefore my efforts are flawed and worthless, though that’s often what people say about more abstract issues in which, nevertheless, lives, places, cultures, species, rights are at stake. They went out there in fishing boats and rowboats and pirogues and all kinds of small craft, some driving from as far as Texas and eluding the authorities to get in, others refugees themselves working within the city. There was bumper-to-bumper boat-trailer traffic—the celebrated Cajun Navy—going toward the city the day after the levees broke. None of those people said, I can’t rescue them all. All of them said, I can rescue someone, and that’s work so meaningful and important I will risk my life and defy the authorities to do it. And they did. Of course, working for systemic change also matters—the kind of change that might prevent calamities by addressing the climate or the infrastructure or the environmental and economic injustice that put some people in harm’s way in New Orleans in the first place.

You already know what you know, after all—and, unless your life is perfect, what you know is not enough. You remain threatened by disease, and self-deception, and unhappiness, and malevolence, and betrayal, and corruption, and pain, and limitation. You are subject to all these things, in the final analysis, because you are just too ignorant to protect yourself. If you just knew enough, you could be healthier and more honest. You would suffer less. You could recognize, resist and even triumph over malevolence and evil. You would neither betray a friend, nor deal falsely and deceitfully in business, politics or love. However, your current knowledge has neither made you perfect nor kept you safe. So, it is insufficient, by definition—radically, fatally insufficient. You must accept this before you can converse philosophically, instead of convincing, oppressing, dominating or even amusing. You must accept this before you can tolerate a conversation where the Word that eternally mediates between order and chaos is operating, psychologically speaking. To have this kind of conversation, it is necessary to respect the personal experience of your conversational partners. You must assume that they have reached careful, thoughtful, genuine conclusions (and, perhaps, they must have done the work tha justifies this assumption). You must believe that if they shared their conclusions with you, you could bypass at least some of the pain of personally learning the same things (as learning from the experience of others can be quicker and much less dangerous). You must meditate, too, instead of strategizing towards victory. If you fail, or refuse, to do so, then you merely and automatically repeat what you already believe, seeking its validation and insisting on its rightness. But if you are meditating as you converse, then you listen to the other person, and say the new and original things that can rise from deep within of their own accord. It’s as if you are listening to yourself during such a conversation, just as you are listening to the other person. You are describing how you are responding to the new information imparted by the speaker. You are reporting what that information has done to you—what new things it made appear within you, how it has changed your presuppositions, how it has made you think of new questions. You tell the speaker these things, directly. Then they have the same effect on him. In this manner, you both move towards somewhere newer and broader and better. You both change, as you let your old presuppositions die—as you shed your skins and emerge renewed. A conversation such as this is one where it is the desire for truth itself—on the part of both participants—that is truly listening and speaking. That’s why it’s engaging, vital, interesting and meaningful. That sense of meaning is a signal from the deep, ancient parts of your Being. You’re where you should be, with one foot in order, and the other tentatively extended into chaos and the unknown. You’re immersed in the Tao, following the great Way of Life. There, you’re stable enough to be secure, but flexible enough to transform. There, you’re allowing new information to inform you—to permeate your stability, to repair and improve its structure, and expand its domain. There the constituent elements of your Being can find their more elegant formation. A conversation like that places you in the same place that listening to great music places you, and for much the same reason. A conversation like that puts you in the realm where souls connect, and that’s a real place. It leaves you thinking, “That was really worthwhile. We really got to know each other.” The masks came off, and the searchers were revealed. So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

other cultures have provided its members with various answers to the question “What is the purpose of human life?” Some cultures have said it is to live a good life and so eventually escape the cycle of karma and reincarnation and be liberated into eternal bliss. Some have said it is enlightenment—the recognition of the oneness of all things and the attainment of tranquility. Others have said it is to live a life of virtue, of nobility and honor. There are those who teach that the ultimate purpose in life is to go to heaven to be with your loved ones and with God forever. The crucial commonality is this: In every one of these worldviews, suffering can, despite its painfulness, be an important means of actually achieving your purpose in life. It can play a pivotal role in propelling you toward all the most important goals. One could say that in each of these other cultures’ grand narratives—what human life is all about—suffering can be an important chapter or part of that story. But modern Western culture is different. In the secular view, this material world is all there is. And so the meaning of life is to have the freedom to choose the life that makes you most happy. However, in that view of things, suffering can have no meaningful part. It is a complete interruption of your life story—it cannot be a meaningful part of the story.

Jay's downstairs waiting." With her father on one side, and the handrail on the other, Violet descended the stairs as if she were floating. Jay stood at the bottom, watching her, frozen in place like a statue. His black suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him. His jacket fell across his strong shoulders in a perfect line, tapering at his narrow waist. The crisp white linen shirt beneath stood out in contrast against the dark, finely woven wool. He smiled appreciatively as he watched her approach, and Violet felt her breath catch in her throat at the striking image of flawlessness that he presented. "You...are so beautiful," he whispered fervently as he strode toward her, taking her dad's place at her arm. She smiled sheepishly up at him. "So are you." Her mom insisted on taking no fewer than a hundred pictures of the two of them, both alone and together, until Violet felt like her eyes had been permanently damaged by the blinding flash. Finally her father called off her mom, dragging her away into the kitchen so that Violet and Jay could have a moment alone together. "I meant it," he said. "You look amazing." She shook her head, not sure what to say, a little embarrassed by the compliment. "I got you something," he said to her as he reached inside his jacket. "I hope you don't mind, it's not a corsage." Violet couldn't have cared less about having flowers to pin on her dress, but she was curious about what he had brought for her. She watched as he dragged out the moment longer than he needed to, taking his time to reveal his surprise. "I got you this instead." He pulled out a black velvet box, the kind that holds fine jewelry. It was long and narrow. She gasped as she watched him lift the lid. Inside was a delicate silver chain, and on it was the polished outline of a floating silver heart that drifted over the chain that held it. Violet reached out to touch it with her fingertip. "It's beautiful," she sighed. He lifted the necklace from the box and held it out to her. "May I?" he asked. She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement as he clasped the silver chain around her bare throat. "Thank you," she breathed, interlacing her hand into his and squeezing it meaningfully. She reluctantly used the crutches to get out to the car, since there were no handrails for her to hold on to. She left like they ruined the overall effect she was going for. Jay's car was as nice on the inside as it was outside. The interior was rich, smoky gray leather that felt like soft butter as he helped her inside. Aside from a few minor flaws, it could have passed for brand-new. The engine purred to life when he turned the key in the ignition, something that her car had never done. Roar, maybe-purr, never. She was relieved that her uncle hadn't ordered a police escort for the two of them to the dance. She had half expected to see a procession of marked police cars, lights swirling and sirens blaring, in the wake of Jay's sleek black Acura. Despite sitting behind the wheel of his shiny new car, Jay could scarcely take his eyes off her. His admiring gaze found her over and over again, while he barely concentrated on the road ahead of him. Fortunately they didn't have far to go.

I think I'm beginning to understand that the quest is the point. Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest it with meaning. The magic is of our own conjuring. Hierophany--that revelation of the sacred--is something that we bring to everyday things, rather than something that is given to us. That quality of experience that reveals to us the workings of the world, that comforts and fascinates us, that ushers us towards a greater understanding of the business of being human: it is not in itself rare. What is rare is our will to pursue it. If we wait passively to become enchanted, we could wait a long time. But seeking is a kind of work. I don't mean heading off on wild road trips just to see the stars that are shining above your own roof. I mean committing to a lifetime of engagement: to noticing the world around you, to actively looking for small distillations of beauty, to making time to contemplate and reflect. To learning the names of the plants and places that surround you, or training your mind in the rich pathways of the metaphorical. To finding a way to express your interconnectedness with the rest of humanity. To putting your feet on the ground, every now and then, and feeling the tingle of life that the earth offers in return. It's all there, waiting for our attention. Take off your shoes, because you are always on holy ground.

JANUARY 26 Being Kind-I You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. —KAHLIL GIBRAN The great and fierce mystic William Blake said, There is no greater act than putting another before you. This speaks to a selfless giving that seems to be at the base of meaningful love. Yet having struggled for a lifetime with letting the needs of others define me, I've come to understand that without the healthiest form of self-love—without honoring the essence of life that this thing called “self” carries, the way a pod carries a seed—putting another before you can result in damaging self-sacrifice and endless codependence. I have in many ways over many years suppressed my own needs and insights in an effort not to disappoint others, even when no one asked me to. This is not unique to me. Somehow, in the course of learning to be good, we have all been asked to wrestle with a false dilemma: being kind to ourselves or being kind to others. In truth, though, being kind to ourselves is a prerequisite to being kind to others. Honoring ourselves is, in fact, the only lasting way to release a truly selfless kindness to others. It is, I believe, as Mencius, the grandson of Confucius, says, that just as water unobstructed will flow downhill, we, given the chance to be what we are, will extend ourselves in kindness. So, the real and lasting practice for each of us is to remove what obstructs us so that we can be who we are, holding nothing back. If we can work toward this kind of authenticity, then the living kindness—the water of compassion—will naturally flow. We do not need discipline to be kind, just an open heart. Center yourself and meditate on the water of compassion that pools in your heart. As you breathe, simply let it flow, without intent, into the air about you. JANUARY 27 Being Kind-II We love what we attend. —MWALIMU IMARA There were two brothers who never got along. One was forever ambushing everything in his path, looking for the next treasure while the first was still in his hand. He swaggered his shield and cursed everything he held. The other brother wandered in the open with very little protection, attending whatever he came upon. He would linger with every leaf and twig and broken stone. He blessed everything he held. This little story suggests that when we dare to move past hiding, a deeper law arises. When we bare our inwardness fully, exposing our strengths and frailties alike, we discover a kinship in all living things, and from this kinship a kindness moves through us and between us. The mystery is that being authentic is the only thing that reveals to us our kinship with life. In this way, we can unfold the opposite of Blake's truth and say, there is no greater act than putting yourself before another. Not before another as in coming first, but rather as in opening yourself before another, exposing your essence before another. Only in being this authentic can real kinship be known and real kindness released. It is why we are moved, even if we won't admit it, when strangers let down and show themselves. It is why we stop to help the wounded and the real. When we put ourselves fully before another, it makes love possible, the way the stubborn land goes soft before the sea. Place a favorite object in front of you, and as you breathe, put yourself fully before it and feel what makes it special to you. As you breathe, meditate on the place in you where that specialness comes from. Keep breathing evenly, and know this specialness as a kinship between you and your favorite object. During your day, take the time to put yourself fully before something that is new to you, and as you breathe, try to feel your kinship to it.

These are the general propositions that form this Humility Code: 1. We don’t live for happiness, we live for holiness. Day to day we seek out pleasure, but deep down, human beings are endowed with moral imagination. All human beings seek to lead lives not just of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness, and virtue. As John Stuart Mill put it, people have a responsibility to become more moral over time. The best life is oriented around the increasing excellence of the soul and is nourished by moral joy, the quiet sense of gratitude and tranquillity that comes as a byproduct of successful moral struggle. The meaningful life is the same eternal thing, the combination of some set of ideals and some man or woman’s struggle for those ideals. Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one. 2. Proposition one defines the goal of life. The long road to character begins with an accurate understanding of our nature, and the core of that understanding is that we are flawed creatures. We have an innate tendency toward selfishness and overconfidence. We have a tendency to see ourselves as the center of the universe, as if everything revolves around us. We resolve to do one thing but end up doing the opposite. We know what is deep and important in life, but we still pursue the things that are shallow and vain. Furthermore, we overestimate our own strength and rationalize our own failures. We know less than we think we do. We give in to short-term desires even when we know we shouldn’t. We imagine that spiritual and moral needs can be solved through status and material things. 3. Although we are flawed creatures, we are also splendidly endowed. We are divided within ourselves, both fearfully and wonderfully made. We do sin, but we also have the capacity to recognize sin, to feel ashamed of sin, and to overcome sin. We are both weak and strong, bound and free, blind and far-seeing. We thus have the capacity to struggle with ourselves. There is something heroic about a person in struggle with herself, strained on the rack of conscience, suffering torments, yet staying alive and growing stronger, sacrificing a worldly success for the sake of an inner victory.

That's his perception of reality," Nenad responded. "He has adopted it as his interpretation and cannot break free from it, and probably doesn't even consider doing so. In fact, we too are unable to escape his worldview as it partly is our own. However, when faced with the choice between the cat and the belt, I choose the cat. It's not doomed, it's not poisoned, and it can be easily removed by hand from the engine, even if it comes at a financial cost. I have enough space in my cage for its rescue. I can imagine that within its mind, this engine has become a prison for his hopes of salvation. Overcoming our phobias of losing money in the pursuit of something else, even in small amounts, is healthy. A ground strap costs nothing, and though it may require a bit of time in a repair shop, in this day and age, we are used to wasting our time for far less. The reality of our daily lives is filled with every online distraction, like a sheet riddled with holes from moths that we wrap ourselves in out of habit without even noticing. It’s so comforting. At first, you embrace what everyone else does, what you are told to think. But eventually, you come to the realization that you have the power to dictate your thought patterns and become the architect of your ideology. You can construct a personal propaganda machine that aligns with your values and desires, creating a unique model of the world that is entirely your own. Your mind is still going to be a box in one of the billions of drawers, but it’s going to be YOUR box. Your true home. Manipulate yourself. We should manipulate ourselves towards common sense, compassion, and hope that we’ll get a good batch of people at some point so we can live among more like-minded peers. Now it’s up to our online feed. Now the education in our phone holds the reins, encapsulated in the three-second video of someone's take on history, the five-second clip of fitness models or investment strategies. And if we're fortunate, some famous person would quote Epictetus' Discourses, perhaps echoing the wisdom of Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Marcus Aurelius, Sartre, etc. This is our chance for us to avoid descending into mere survival instincts without the tempering influence of morality and an understanding of the absurdity that we have created around us. To get addicted to the freedom in our minds. OR to choose the ground strap, choose to sacrifice someone else’s life so we can preserve our resources, because that’s what greed is, on a deep ancient level it’s you hoarding resources the same way a squirrel does with its winter supplies. Choose to be a squirrel rather than a human and live off your acorns. Choose to kill the cat. Choose not to ruin your precious machine. Choose the current model of society and disappear in it like a pelican getting caught in an airplane engine. Perhaps responsibility is the first and maybe even the only synonym for human purpose. Of course, there is value in the small moments we experience, but they lack foundation if they don’t fit into the break from working on something meaningful.

Making the most of an experience: Living fully is extolled everywhere in popular culture. I have only to turn on the television at random to be assailed with the following messages: “It’s the best a man can get.” “It’s like having an angel by your side.” “Every move is smooth, every word is cool. I never want to lose that feeling.” “You look, they smile. You win, they go home.” What is being sold here? A fantasy of total sensory pleasure, social status, sexual attraction, and the self-image of a winner. As it happens, all these phrases come from the same commercial for razor blades, but living life fully is part of almost any ad campaign. What is left out, however, is the reality of what it actually means to fully experience something. Instead of looking for sensory overload that lasts forever, you’ll find that the experiences need to be engaged at the level of meaning and emotion. Meaning is essential. If this moment truly matters to you, you will experience it fully. Emotion brings in the dimension of bonding or tuning in: An experience that touches your heart makes the meaning that much more personal. Pure physical sensation, social status, sexual attraction, and feeling like a winner are generally superficial, which is why people hunger for them repeatedly. If you spend time with athletes who have won hundreds of games or with sexually active singles who have slept with hundreds of partners, you’ll find out two things very quickly: (1) Numbers don’t count very much. The athlete usually doesn’t feel like a winner deep down; the sexual conqueror doesn’t usually feel deeply attractive or worthy. (2) Each experience brings diminishing returns; the thrill of winning or going to bed becomes less and less exciting and lasts a shorter time. To experience this moment, or any moment, fully means to engage fully. Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example, unless you enter the individual’s world by finding out at least one thing that is meaningful to his or her life and exchange at least one genuine feeling. Tuning in to others is a circular flow: You send yourself out toward people; you receive them as they respond to you. Notice how often you don’t do that. You stand back and insulate yourself, sending out only the most superficial signals and receive little or nothing back. The same circle must be present even when someone else isn’t involved. Consider the way three people might observe the same sunset. The first person is obsessing over a business deal and doesn’t even see the sunset, even though his eyes are registering the photons that fall on their retinas. The second person thinks, “Nice sunset. We haven’t had one in a while.” The third person is an artist who immediately begins a sketch of the scene. The differences among the three are that the first person sent nothing out and received nothing back; the second allowed his awareness to receive the sunset but had no awareness to give back to it—his response was rote; the third person was the only one to complete the circle: He took in the sunset and turned it into a creative response that sent his awareness back out into the world with something to give. If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle.

Whether the stress in our life is harmful or beneficial depends on how we respond to it. If we believe the barriers before us too burdensome and a threat to our well-being, the stress they evoke is detrimental to our health. But if we adopt a “challenge response” (Kelly McGonigal) – perceiving them as problems to solve in pursuit of success and growth – the stress we experience acts as a constructive companion; it spurs us to action. Many people dream of living a stress free life; but in reality such a life would be unbearably boring. To flourish, we should not avoid hardship. Instead, we should adopt a more competitive attitude towards our existence – a life of agon, as the Ancient Greeks called it – and in whatever domains we devote ourselves to, our goal should be excellence. Living in this manner will call forth an abundance of challenges, and hence, the type of meaningful stress and struggle we need to feel life is worth living.

Faith is one of the most important elements of human life. It is with faith that you operate your imagination, then gaining upper control over the physical universe around you. It is with faith that you make plans for the future, endure the pains of seeing them fail, and then regain hope again, by replanning, readjusting towards your goals, in order to finally succeed. It is because of your faith that your life gains a higher meaning, enabling you to endure the most profound of chaos, at a mental, physical, and spiritual level. It is due to faith, that we love. And it is because of faith that we keep our relationships. No relationship was ever made possible without faith. That was not, at the very least, a relationship that could be labeled as a loving one. Because we only associate with those who can become recipients of our faith. That faith then assumes different ramifications, in the form of trust, commitment, realistic expectations, and understanding. Whenever these fundamental branches get broken, faith is lost, and so is the relationship or its meaning. Nothing ever ends before ending faith first. Suicide, depression, despair, and anxiety, among many other forms of mental illnesses and emotional challenges in general, cannot emerge without breaking faith first. And that faith is broken first in our social interactions before being broken within us. We do that by violating our own ethical code. Ultimately, faith connects us as a collective and connects the essence of our soul to the meaning of life. Without faith, nothing makes any sense. But the deepest challenge of faith, is always a karmic one, for the heavier your karma, the more faith you will need to overcome it. The worse the actions of the past — the more against your spiritual integrity and the spiritual integrity of others they are — the thicker will be the layers of your karma. And those layers will manifest too in the physical world, leading into the greatest trap of all, which is the idea that your surroundings and those who compose them make you. They do not. And every glimpse of light in the horizon, in the form of an illusion, shows you that. Because that is what pleasant illusions are for, to give you hope. Because it is thanks to hoping that you rediscover your faith and it is with this renewed faith that you rediscover love. Happiness then could be considered a process, but no process is joyful until you look back at the memories that led you towards success, and no success is meaningful except the one that can be shared. Recognition and admiration are then not a goal in itself, but part of such illusion in which we find ourselves, for it either sink us deeper into thicker layers of karma or propels us outwards, and towards love. The difference is as clear as in seeing with whom we associate ourselves with, for we may be too immersed in a karmic fog to realize that the ones who help us the most are not our enemies, and our enemies may be the ones we consider friends. Upon contemplating these different stages of karmic manifestation, one then understands the need to repent, and becomes humble, and focused on his spiritual freedom before even considering a spiritual growth. When this is consciously seen and accepted, he will feel blessed for the glimpses of light, no matter how delusional, and the ones who despite the inner conflicts caused can lead then to the spiritual freedom they seek. As a man in the dark, those who are blinded by their karma, won’t be able to discern their angels from their demons, but faith in oneself is a good start in that direction.

Science can contribute toward assisting with techniques of stress reduction — and research already shows that our survival and sustainability depends on our global cooperation as interdependent beings — but by itself, science cannot provide the values for a moral, meaningful life.

Society is against the heart, because the heart lives through love. And love cannot be controlled and conditioned. The heart is basically rebellious. The heart always lives in the moment. It never repeats the old. The heart always responds to the present moment. This is why society is against the heart. Society disciplines the head, because the head functionslike a machine. Machines are never rebellious. They simply follow orders. They are obedient. Hence the state, the church and the establishment, the status quo, are interested in the head. Our heart is the door to allow existence to guide us – instead of being directed by our own ideas, attitudes and preconceived expectations of how life should be. The heart creates inconvenience for society and for the established order. The heart is spontaneous and never repeats the old. The head lives in the past, which is why the head is traditional and conventional.  The heart relates to unconditional love and acceptance both for ourselves and for other people.  The heart relates to qualities such as empathy, joy, acceptance, trust, intuition, understanding, compassion, playfulness, healing, friendship, sincerity and a sense of oneness in love. Love is not an exclusive relationship with another person; love is the quality that arises when we are in contact with our inner being, with our authentic self, withthe meditative quality within, with the inner silence and emptiness. This inner emptiness is experienced by others and is expressed on the outside as love. This love is not addressed to a specific person; it is a presence that surrounds a person like a fragrance. Love is perfect as it is. Love is enough unto itself. Love has to be understood. Love is the flight of your consciousness to higher realms beyond the body. Love is the fragrance of a rising consciousness. Love is like the fragrance of a flower. The moment you are overflowing with joy, a longing arises to share it. This sharing is love. Love is not something that you can get from somebody else, who has not attained to a state of joy. Everybody is asking to be loved, and pretending to love. You cannot love, because you don't know what consciousness is. You don't know the truth; you don't know the experience of the divine.  You don't know what love is, because you have not yet gone deeper in your consciousness. In this ignorance and blindness love does not grow. If you really want to know love, forget about love and remember meditation. Love is the defeat of all imposed rules and conditions. hence there is  a struggle between the individual who follows his heart and the collective who follows the imposed order. The individual who follows his heart has to be aware of this struggle, because he is moving towards the freedom of being himself. Being himself means that he is not going to be ruled by the collective, by the crowd. It means that now he will live according to his own heart, according to his own light. When he becomes independent, he will start feeling that he is  becoming one with the whole, one with the universal.  It is on the consciousness level of the heart that we begin to understand that we are not separated from life. We begin to understand that we are not small separate islands in a great ocean, but that life is one and that we all are small parts of the Whole. We begin to understand what is really important and meaningful in life. It is on the consciousness level of the heart that we begin to understand that life is about sharing, rather than hoarding. We begin to understand that life is about giving, rather than taking.

Standing three hundred miles from Springer Mountain after hiking for three weeks, this work-in-progress version of me knew there was immense value in enduring hardship, pushing myself toward what I believed were my limits, and seeing myself burst through the other side of them.

Clearly, a child who is brought up without fear and respect for G-d in his heart will have no fear or respect for any authority—his parents, his teachers, law enforcement officers. He must learn to accept the concept of a divine moral code that we all must obey. He must realize that the laws of man are rooted in something far more eternal: the Ten Commandments.

With the left eye, you should look at yourself, to see how you can improve yourself. And with the right eye, you should look at others lovingly, always seeking out their best qualities.

Learn to love your family in a new way. Love them not only because they are your flesh and blood, but because they are G-d’s children. Before putting your children to sleep, give them a new kind of kiss, one filled with the fire of your G-dly soul. Talk to them about love, and how to care for one another.

Experience has shown that teenagers, especially today, are more likely to accept guidance from older friends and relatives than from their parents. Perhaps they feel that their parents are too determined to impose authority, too judgmental, or too quick to think of teenagers as immature.

Yes, a healthy home must be run with discipline, but even that discipline must contain love. This cannot be manufactured or superficial, for children are highly sensitive to honest emotions. On the other hand, they will react with pure joy when they receive the genuine love of their parents, and they will reciprocate. As is written in Proverbs, “As water mirrors a face, a heart responds to another.”1

The message children should be hearing from their parents is: “Respect me not because I am so great, but because of G-d. Just as G-d gave me life through your grandparents, G-d gave you life through me.

A Sound Soul in a Sound Body One has no right to harm his body, for it is not his property, but G-d’s. —Code of Jewish Law A sound and healthy body is dependent on a sound and healthy soul. —The Rebbe

The drive to work and to accomplish is an integral part of human life. As the sages say, “Every person was created to toil.”1 A person cannot be satisfied if he or she is not productive. Human nature detests receiving something for nothing—“bread of shame” is how it is described by the sages.2

man is composed of two dimensions, the body and the soul. The body, by its nature, grows weary, and needs to rest. The soul, on the other hand, never grows weary; it is the vibrant soul that pushes you to work even when your body itself would rather languish and be cared for by someone else.

What your birth means is that you are G-d’s child. Your birth was not an accident; G-d chooses each of us to fulfill a specific mission in this world, just as a composer arranges each musical note. Take away even one note, and the entire composition is affected. Each person matters; each person is irreplaceable. Your life is always leading you toward your destiny, and every single moment is meaningful and precious.

Because of their innocence, their curiosity, and their purity, children stand closer to G-d than an adult. And so the great secret to childhood is not that our children have much to learn from us, but that we have much to learn from them.

The happiness of pleasure is largely sensory. It’s a good meal when you’re hungry, the smell of air after it rains, waking up warm and cozy in your bed. The happiness of grace is gratitude. It’s looking over to see the love of your life sleeping next to you and whispering, “thank you.” It’s taking inventory of what you do have. It’s when you speak to something greater than yourself, expressing humility and awe. And then there is the happiness of excellence. The kind of happiness that comes from the pursuit of something great. Not the moment you arrive at the top of the mountain and raise your fists in victory, but the process of falling in love with the hike. It is meaningful work. It is flow. It is the purpose that sears identity and builds character and channels our energy toward something greater than the insatiable, daily pursuit of our fleeting desires.

So there are two vastly divergent views on aging—that is, “You are old and worn out, thus useless” versus “You are wise and experienced, thus indispensable.

When it is very cold, there are two ways to warm yourself. One is by putting on a fur coat, the other is by lighting a fire. The difference is that the fur coat warms only the person wearing it, while the fire warms anyone who comes near.

A true leader wants nothing more than to give people pride, to make people stand on their own, as leaders in their own right. Instead of trying to blind us with his or her brilliance, a true leader reflects our own light back to us, so that we may see ourselves anew.

Deep in our hearts, we are all aware of this connection. Any thinking person who contemplates the solar system, for example, or the complexities of an atom, must come to the conclusion that our universe did not come about by some freak accident. Nor is it composed merely of physical matter; every fiber of being is pulsating with energy. Wherever we turn, we see design and purpose—the hallmark of our creator.

It is also appropriate for the bride and groom to give some money to charity on their wedding day, and for their parents to do the same.

You have read too many romance novels,” he replied. “Love is not the overwhelming, blinding emotion we find in the world of fiction. Real love is an emotion that intensifies throughout life. It is the small, everyday acts of being together that make love flourish. It is sharing and caring and respecting one another. It is building a life together, a family and a home.

Love is the single most necessary component in human life. It is both giving and receiving; it allows us to experience another person and lets that person experience us. Love is the origin and foundation of all human interaction.

The deepest love is not merely human. It is a love infused with G-dliness, whereby a mortal kiss is transformed into an immortal one. True love is one soul greeting another.

The difference between a miracle and an act of nature is only in frequency.1 Imagine that the sun were to rise only once in our lifetime. Everyone would rush out to see it, proclaiming it a most miraculous event. But since we experience a sunrise every day, we see it as just another ordinary part of our lives.

Because so many of us take for granted the many wonders before our eyes, G-d does on occasion perform miracles to shake us from our reverie, to elevate us to a higher plane of awareness. Sometimes a miracle occurs to rescue us from a dire situation. Since G-d created the universe and its laws of nature, it would follow that He can alter or suspend these laws as He sees fit.4

Unity is often confused with sameness. We may think that if everyone thought and acted the same, we would have perfect harmony. But unity is a process, whereas sameness is just a state of being. The same musical notes played again and again would be monotonous or irritating, but many different notes, each played differently, create a beautiful composition.

When teaching a child, or when you see a friend succumbing to selfishness, it may be tempting to reprimand him, to frighten him by warning of the terrible consequences that will surely befall him if he continues his behavior. But the positive approach is ultimately more successful. Tell the person about the goodness within him, of his pure soul and great potential; show what a great injustice he is committing by not living up to this potential. Such advice will foster confidence and pride, while a grave warning demoralizes a person and closes up his soul.