The Meaning of Life

 

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Yesterday with the sophomores we read “The Meaning of Life Is Surprisingly Simple,” one of a series of similar articles by Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic. For our purposes today, let me share a brief excerpt:

You can [find the meaning of your life] most effectively—and without too much obsessing—by assessing your life along three dimensions, which the psychologists Frank Martela and Michael F. Steger defined in The Journal of Positive Psychology in 2016:

• Coherence: how events fit together. This is an understanding that things happen in your life for a reason. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can fit new developments into your narrative the moment they happen, but you usually are able to do so afterward, so you have faith that you eventually will.

• Purpose: the existence of goals and aims. This is the belief that you are alive in order to do something. Think of purpose as your personal mission statement, such as “the purpose of my life is to share the secrets to happiness” or “I am here to spread love abundantly.”

• Significance: life’s inherent value. This is the sense that your life matters. If you have high levels of significance, you’re confident that the world would be a tiny bit—or perhaps a lot—poorer if you didn’t exist.

You can think of these three dimensions as macronutrients: the elements that we need for a balanced and healthy sense of meaning in life. They might already be part of your spiritual diet. For example, Christians believe that life is significant because God loves us; that our purpose is to love and serve God and other people; and that God has a coherent plan for our lives, whether it is clear to us or not.

Anyway, today we have a librarian from the county come visit us and one of the things he pitched us was making zines. He left some office paper with a bunch of zine ideas printed on one side and instructions on how to foldup on the other.

I actually do this with my students every once in a while and so I have a collection of little minizines I’ve made over the years. The one I made today was inspired by yesterday’s reading. And since the meaning of life is relevant to all, I figured I’d share.

I hadn’t planned to post it here or I might have troubled myself to write a leeettle beet more clearly.

Ah well.