A Life of Meaning

A friend of mine posted this article on facebook from the online news aggregator thealtantic.com titled “There’s more to life than being happy”.  Intrigued by the title, I clicked on the link and kept on reading…

Three points jumped out at me as I read.

1)      “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." I anchor this into my own religious faith, that God gave humans free will to choose AND the intellect to think, to question and to come to a conclusion.

2)      How does the happy life and meaningful life differ?  Happy people get a lot of joy from receiving benefits from others while people leading meaningful lives get a lot of joy from giving to others.  I volunteer; I have a job I work hard at; I am married; I have 2 children.  All these activities do not make sense from the happiness perspective (I would be much happier exercising, or watching CSI on TV) but they totally make sense from the meaningful-life point of view.

3)      The pursuit of meaning is what makes humans uniquely human.

Yesterday, I went for tea with some new friends, and one of them asked me casually (in response to the SG government’s SGD2billion stimulus to boost fertility rates http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1249234/1/.html)

“Celine, are you going to have a third child?”

I have assessed and determined for myself that there is mental space for only Medium Boy and Small Boy in my life, given that I still want to work (and be good at my job), have space and time for hobbies and generally having more vivid strong moments. 

Here’s to a more meaningful life in 2013!

… Ha!  I do have a new year resolution after all…