Zest For Life Meaning Quotes

I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night—in the moments before I pass off into sleep—ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy.

Spirituality is not just about religion, or church attendance, or fidelity to one or other legal requirement. Spirituality is understood to be an innate wisdom of the human heart that enlivens a zest for life, a search for meaning and purpose, a love for all that is good and beautiful, a passion to create a better world, a sensitivity to the life-energy (God, if you wish) that permeates the entire cosmos.

I have known successful businessmen who, upon retirement, lost all zest for life. Their work had given their lives meaning. Often it was the only thing that had given their lives meaning and, without it, they spent day after day sitting at home, depressed, “with nothing to do.

Wise Blood has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about a Christian malgré lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death. Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for some readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen. (Preface to second edition, 1962)

If one takes meaning into consideration, happiness might best be described as “a zest for life in all its complexity,” as Sissela Bok writes in her book. To achieve it means to “attach our lives to something larger than ourselves.” To be happy, one must do. It could be something as simple as teaching Sunday school or as grand as leading nonviolent protests. It could be as cerebral as seeking the cure for cancer or as physical as climbing mountains. It could be creating art. And it could be raising a child—my “best piece of poetrie,” as Ben Jonson said in his elegy for his seven-year-old son.

A man of adequate vitality and zest will surmount all misfortunes by the emergence after each blow of an interest in life and the world which cannot be narrowed down so much as to make one loss fatal. To be defeated by one loss or even by several is not something to be admired as a proof of sensibility, but something to be deplored as a failure in vitality. All our affections are at the mercy of death, which may strike down those whom we love at any moment. It is therefore necessary that our lives should not have that narrow intensity which puts the whole meaning and purpose of our life at the mercy of accident.

The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless. He never, fatigued and unable to maintain the rigors of creativity, resorts to mass-producing copies. Each life is a fresh canvas on which he uses lines and colors, shades and lights, textures and proportions that he has never used before. We see what is possible: anyone and everyone is able to live a zestful life that spills out of the stereotyped containers that a sin-inhibited society provides. Such lives fuse spontaneity and purpose and green the desiccated landscape with meaning. And we see how it is possible: by plunging into a life of faith, participating in what God initiates in each life, exploring what God is doing in each event.

Adventure begins with you, personally. It is in the way you look at things. It is the mental stance you take as you face your day. It is finding magic in things. It is talking with people and discovering their inner goodness. It is the thrill of feeling a part of the life around you. The attitude of adventure will open things up for you. The world will become alive with new zest and meaning. You’ll become more aware of the beauty everywhere. Nothing will seem unimportant. Everything will be revealed as having pattern and purpose.” — Wilferd Peterson —

Think excitement, talk excitement, act out excitement, and you are bound to become an excited person. Life will take on a new zest, with deeper interests and greater meaning. You can think, talk and act yourself into dullness or into monotony or into unhappiness. By the same process you can build up inspiration, excitement and surging depth of joy.

Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank, scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely. There are no bathing-steps on the river front, as the Ganges happens not to be holy here; indeed there is no river front, and bazaars shut out the wide and shifting panorama of the stream. The streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest. Chandrapore was never large or beautiful, but two hundred years ago it lay on the road between Upper India, then imperial, and the sea, and the fine houses date from that period. The zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth century, nor was it ever democratic. There is no painting and scarcely any carving in the bazaars. The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving. So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life.

I think that happiness is the experience which encompasses our ability to live, inclusive of all the mini pangs of being-alive-passions that we have. For example, just because you're sad, I don't think that means your state as a person is "unhappy." You can be a happy person and feel fully sad, fully joyous, fully worried, fully lighthearted, fully calm, fully expectant or nervous... happiness is being a full person. It's not living life in this one corner where you've curated everything to suit your ideal of what a happy person should be made up of. It's not this single, linear mode of thought or of being. I think it's the full experience of life and the art of living with the zest that you choose to live with.

It has said of walkers … that they are born, not made … Others have claimed that only when you go afoot do you grow in the grace of gentleness and humility; that the shining angles accompany the man who walks, but the dark spirits are ever looking out for a chance to ride … while the purely physical aspect of walking may appeal to one person, nature's companionship may be the joy of another. Much will depend upon what we are in ourselves -- our qualities of heart and mind and soul, our natural temperament and training, our relationship to the all-pervading Spirit, and upon the influences which affect us; but that it is a healthy, purifying, and character-revealing exercise most walkers will agree. The very unrest within us that sends us forth upon our walks is an interesting problem. The adventures and experience we meet give a zest to life itself, and often reveal its meaning, and it is with the memories of these we fashion the framework of our temple of the hills

In good truth he had started in London with some vague idea that as his life in it would not be of long continuance, the pace at which he elected to travel would be of little consequence; but the years since his first entry into the Metropolis were now piled one on top of another, his youth was behind him, his chances of longevity, spite of the way he had striven to injure his constitution, quite as good as ever. He had come to that period of existence, to that narrow strip of tableland, whence the ascent of youth and the descent of age are equally discernible - when, simply because he has lived for so many years, it strikes a man as possible he may have to live for just as many more, with the ability for hard work gone, with the boon companions scattered, with the capacity for enjoying convivial meetings a mere memory, with small means perhaps, with no bright hopes, with the pomp and the circumstance and the fairy carriages, and the glamour which youth flings over earthly objects, faded away like the pageant of yesterday, while the dreary ceremony of living has to be gone through today and tomorrow and the morrow after, as though the gay cavalcade and the martial music, and the glittering helmets and the prancing steeds were still accompanying the wayfarer to his journey's end. Ah! my friends, there comes a moment when we must all leave the coach with its four bright bays, its pleasant outside freight, its cheery company, its guard who blows the horn so merrily through villages and along lonely country roads. Long before we reach that final stage, where the black business claims us for its own speecial property, we have to bid goodbye to all easy, thoughtless journeying and betake ourselves, with what zest we may, to traversing the common of reality. There is no royal road across it that ever I heard of. From the king on his throne to the laborer who vaguely imagines what manner of being a king is, we have all to tramp across that desert at one period of our lives, at all events; and that period is usually when, as I have said, a man starts to find the hopes, and the strength, and the buoyancy of youth left behind, while years and years of life lie stretching out before him. The coach he has travelled by drops him here. There is no appeal, there is no help; therefore, let him take off his hat and wish the new passengers good speed without either envy or repining. Behld, he has had his turn, and let whosoever will, mount on the box-seat of life again, and tip the coachman and handle the ribbons - he shall take that journey no more, no more for ever. ("The Banshee's Warning")

Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught to managers. Heslin and his colleagues conducted a brief workshop based on well-established psychological principles. (By the way, with a few changes, it could just as easily be used to promote a growth mindset in teachers or coaches.) The workshop starts off with a video and a scientific article about how the brain changes with learning. As with our “Brainology” workshop (described in chapter 8), it’s always compelling for people to understand how dynamic the brain is and how it changes with learning. The article goes on to talk about how change is possible throughout life and how people can develop their abilities at most tasks with coaching and practice. Although managers, of course, want to find the right person for a job, the exactly right person doesn’t always come along. However, training and experience can often draw out and develop the qualities required for successful performance. The workshop then takes managers through a series of exercises in which a) they consider why it’s important to understand that people can develop their abilities, b) they think of areas in which they once had low ability but now perform well, c) they write to a struggling protégé about how his or her abilities can be developed, and d) they recall times they have seen people learn to do things they never thought these people could do. In each case, they reflect upon why and how change takes place. After the workshop, there was a rapid change in how readily the participating managers detected improvement in employee performance, in how willing they were to coach a poor performer, and in the quantity and quality of their coaching suggestions. What’s more, these changes persisted over the six-week period in which they were followed up. What does this mean? First, it means that our best bet is not simply to hire the most talented managers we can find and turn them loose, but to look for managers who also embody a growth mindset: a zest for teaching and learning, an openness to giving and receiving feedback, and an ability to confront and surmount obstacles. It also means we need to train leaders, managers, and employees to believe in growth, in addition to training them in the specifics of effective communication and mentoring. Indeed, a growth mindset workshop might be a good first step in any major training program. Finally, it means creating a growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive. This involves: • Presenting skills as learnable • Conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance, not just ready-made genius or talent • Giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and future success • Presenting managers as resources for learning Without a belief in human development, many corporate training programs become exercises of limited value. With a belief in development, such programs give meaning to the term “human resources” and become a means of tapping enormous potential.

What will it mean in practice for me to put God first? This much, at least. All the 101 things I have to do each day, and the 101 demands on me which I know I must try to meet, will all be approached as ventures of loving service to him, and I shall do the best I can in everything for his sake—which attitude, as George Herbert quaintly said, “makes drudgery divine; who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and th’ action fine.” And then I shall find that, through the secret work of the Spirit which is known by its effects, my very purpose of pleasing God gives me new energy for all these tasks and relationships, energy which otherwise I could not have had. “I could not love thee, dear, so much loved I not honor more,” said the poet. Put “God” for “honor,” and you have the deepest truth about the Christian’s love of his neighbor. Self-absorbed resentments dissolve, and zest for life, happiness in doing things, and love for others all grow great when God comes first. So

This is to abandon yourself to your experience, your state of mind as it is at this very moment, being prepared to let it take you wherever it wills. But, as we have seen, as soon as you let life live you, you discover that you are living life with an altogether new fullness and zest. To return to the analogy of the dance, it is as if you allowed your partner, life, to swing you along until you so get the “feel” of the dance that you are doing the “swinging” just as much as your partner. And then she will laugh at you and tell you that you were doing it all the time, only that you were so busy trying to figure out the steps by yourself that you forgot your partner and even forgot that it was a dance.

In Xenophon's summary of the allegory [Prodicus' "Choice of Heracles'' ] the young Heracles has sat down at a crossroads, not knowing which path to follow through life. As he sits deliberating, two women appear to him. Their physical appearance is a study in contrasts, and they are clearly villainness and heroine. Evil (Kakia) is overfed, plump, rouged, and all powdered up. She wears revealing clothes and is vain, viewing herself in a mirror and turning around to see if she is being admired. Virtue (Arete), on the other hand, wears simple white; her only adornments are purity, modesty, and temperance. These apparitions proceed to give speeches in praise of the life that they can give Heracles. Evil speaks first-an ominous choice, since in such debates, the first speaker typically loses. She offers Heracles a life of free, effortless pleasure. There will be no delights that he will not taste, no difficulties that he will not avoid. He need never worry about wars and affairs. All he need trouble himself about will be what food or drink to take; what to look at, hear, smell or touch for his pleasure; what partner he might enjoy, how he might sleep softest, and how he can obtain all these with the least toil (aponOtata). If ever there are shortages, he will not suffer ponos or hardship either in body or soul. Rather "you will enjoy those things that others work to produce, and you will not hold back from profiting everywhere." Evil tells Heracles her name, but adds confidentially that to her friends she is known as Happiness (Eudaimonia). Very different is the tone and substance of Virtue's argument. For while Evil would have Heracles live for himself alone and treat others as means to his self-gratification, Virtue begins by saying that she knows Heracles' parents and nature: Heracles must live up to his Olympian heritage. Therefore she will not deceive him with "hymns to pleasure." Evil's enticements are in fact contrary to the divine ordering, "for the gods have given men nothing good without ponos and diligence." There follows a series of emphatic verbal nouns to hammer home this truth: if you want divine favor, you must worship the gods; if you want to be admired, you must do good works for your friends; if you want to be honored, you must benefit your city and Greece; if you want the earth to bear crops, you must cultivate the land. Flocks require tending, war demands practice. And if you want strength (Heracles' trademark), you must accustom your body to serve your will, and you must train "with ponoi and sweat:' At this point, Evil bursts in to deplore such a harsh lifestyle. She is immediately silenced, however, as Virtue argues that duality is essential to a sense of fulfillment and even to pleasure itself. For paradoxically, ponos (pain, struggle) makes pleasure pleasurable. Evil's vision of happiness is one of continual and languid orgy-food without hunger, drink without thirst, sex without desire, sleep without weariness. But as experience shows, continual partying soon loses its zest, even if one goes so far as to cool expensive drinks "with snow" in summertime. By contrast, Virtue's own followers have no real trouble in satisfying their desires. They do so not by committing violence against others or living off others' labor, but by simply "holding off until they actually do desire" food or drink. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is free. Furthermore, Virtue appeals to Heracles' native idealism. What hedonists have ever accomplished any "fine work" (ergon kalon)? None, for no beautiful or divine deed is ever done "without me [Virtue] ." Therefore, wherever there are energetic, effective people, Virtue is present: she is a helper to craftsmen, a guard of the household, a partner in peacetime ponoi, an ally for the works (erga) of war, the best support of friendship. To choose Evil would be shameful and not even extremely pleasurable, while with Virtue one will lead the most varied and honorable life.

Rather than measure happiness against my friends’ zest for life, I’m practicing being happy for them when they share their passions and excitement. It helps me feel more content about my own life.

The place just looked dead. No zest at all. He wanted to get out as quickly as possible. As he did, however, James had a thought that gave him pause, one that has often slowed me down in the frantic pursuit of my own zestful experiences. Is it not possible, even quite likely, that the men and women who live here, their children and their pets, all live lives that strive after similar moments of meaning? Is it not possible, that they long for and find zest in their surroundings in precisely the way that I do? Yes, it is possible. Now let’s be careful here. James wasn’t saying that the strangers whom we see through a glass darkly have the same experiences that we do, that we should project our own wants and desires on the people we pass on the street or in the market. He was precisely not saying this. He is suggesting that individuals tap meaning—and experience zest—in singularly unique ways. In other words, we are the same precisely because there is an irreducible difference between the zests that make our worlds meaningful. And, at the same time, the disappointment and tragedy of zest-unrealized or zest-extinguished is a similar feeling of utter alienation and loneliness. We feel ourselves apart in the same way.

Sometimes I think of my death,’ wrote Kurosawa, ‘I think of ceasing to be... and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came.’ The story of a man diagnosed with stomach cancer, Kurosawa’s film is a serious contemplation of the nature of existence and the question of how we find meaning in our lives. Opening with a shot of an x-ray, showing the main character’s stomach, Ikiru, tells the tale of a dedicated, downtrodden civil servant who, diagnosed with a fatal cancer, learns to change his dull, unfulfilled existence, and suddenly discovers a zest for life. Plunging first into self-pity, then a bout of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the frentic streets of post-war Tokyo, Watanabe - the film’s hero, finally finds satisfaction through building a children’s playground. In this, the role of his career, Shimura plays Kanji Watanabe, a senior civil servant sunk in ossified routine - a man who, as the dispassionate narrator tells us, has lived like a corpse for twenty-five years. Confronted with the news that he has terminal cancer with only months to live, he finds himself driven to give some meaning to his life. This was one of Kurosawa’s own favourites among his films. It grew, he said, out of a sense of his own mortality. Although he was only 42 and had yet to make most of his finest films, he was tormented with doubts about what his own life would be worth, saying, ‘I keep feeling I have lived so little. My heart aches with this feeling.’ From this angle, the film can be seen as a form of therapy, Kurosawa reassuring himself, and us, that life *can* be made to have meaning, even under the shadow of imminent death. As the critic Richard Brown wrote, Ikiru ‘consists of a restrained affirmation within the context of a giant negation. What it says in starkly lucid terms is that ‘life’ is meaningless when all’s said and done; at the same time one man’s life can acquire meaning when he undertakes to perform some task which is meaningful *to him*. What everyone else thinks about that man’s life is utterly beside the point, even ludicrous. The meaning of his life is what he commits the meaning of his life to be. There is nothing else.

We each labor under our own brand of personal doubt that undercuts longed for equanimity. We diligently search for a lost language that tells us how to live with zest and joy. We seek to align ourselves with our sublime inner nature and mirror the divine wholesomeness of the matchless beauty of the natural world that surrounds us. We seek to devolve transcendent fluidity of the mind through the personal power of self-control, perception, and knowledge.

How we are likely to feel when our needs are being met absorbed adventurous affectionate alert alive amazed amused animated appreciative ardent aroused astonished blissful breathless buoyant calm carefree cheerful comfortable complacent composed concerned confident contented cool curious dazzled delighted eager ebullient ecstatic effervescent elated enchanted encouraged energetic engrossed enlivened enthusiastic excited exhilarated expansive expectant exultant fascinated free friendly fulfilled glad gleeful glorious glowing good-humored grateful gratified happy helpful hopeful inquisitive inspired intense interested intrigued invigorated involved joyous, joyful jubilant keyed-up loving mellow merry mirthful moved optimistic overjoyed overwhelmed peaceful perky pleasant pleased proud quiet radiant rapturous refreshed relaxed relieved satisfied secure sensitive serene spellbound splendid stimulated surprised tender thankful thrilled touched tranquil trusting upbeat warm wide-awake wonderful zestful How we are likely to feel when our needs are not being met afraid aggravated agitated alarmed aloof angry anguished annoyed anxious apathetic apprehensive aroused ashamed beat bewildered bitter blah blue bored brokenhearted chagrined cold concerned confused cool cross dejected depressed despairing despondent detached disaffected disappointed discouraged disenchanted disgruntled disgusted disheartened dismayed displeased disquieted distressed disturbed downcast downhearted dull edgy embarrassed embittered exasperated exhausted fatigued fearful fidgety forlorn frightened frustrated furious gloomy guilty harried heavy helpless hesitant horrible horrified hostile hot humdrum hurt impatient indifferent intense irate irked irritated jealous jittery keyed-up lazy leery lethargic listless lonely mad mean miserable mopey morose mournful nervous nettled numb overwhelmed panicky passive perplexed pessimistic puzzled rancorous reluctant repelled resentful restless sad scared sensitive shaky shocked skeptical sleepy sorrowful sorry spiritless startled surprised suspicious tepid terrified tired troubled uncomfortable unconcerned uneasy unglued unhappy unnerved unsteady upset uptight vexed weary wistful withdrawn woeful worried wretched Summary