The Disease of Meaning

What does it all mean ? It occurs to so many of us sooner or later.

What does it all mean?

Let me explain a little further. There was a time before you knew you existed. When you were just you. Lying in a soft bed with a full belly. Gurgling happily away. (Yes, perhaps that was more recently for some of you than others ) It was a time when you had no sense of you and the world as separate things. You were the world and all that was in it. 

After a little time, you began to realise and understand your own self as a physical entity. We notice our reflection or a shadow that responds as we move. The physical self is now born. 

The next self to the emerge is our 'emotional self'. This comes of an understanding that emotionally we are separate from the rest of the world. Emotional self can be seen emerging if you see the confusion in the eyes of a child in the throws of a full-on temper tantrum,but quite suddenly they realise that they are the only ones crying. They are separate emotionally. 

It's not until they get to about two or three that we begin to understand that we have an identity and a 'consciousness'. It's at this age that we begin to label things. This is also known as the language stage. With the emergence of early language, children are acquiring between three and six words every single day. They learn that they can label the world using sounds and noises to represent concrete things. 'Ball’, 'Dog’ 'Mum' ‘Dad’ ‘Broccoli " this is known as the emergence of 'conceptual self.

At the age of about six children begin to understand that the objects around them adhere to rules and that they can learn these 'rules of things'. This is known as a state of concrete consciousness. e.g A mummy is like this because she has long hair. and a daddy is like that because he has short hair. The house is a house because it has a door and four windows etc. This is when it all starts to make sense.

Now children begin to ask questions The Why? Stage has begun. 'Why is it time to stop playing and go to bed?' Interestingly this is the age when humour begins to emerge, because you can play against the rules that are being set down. A foolish Uncle might say to the four-year-old niece “Look at the dog going meow" If they do observe the look of complete contempt from the child. "Silly Uncle Gary!!" They would say. This phase lasts until they are about nine years old. And that's we're most people stay emotionally. On the surface thirty five  On the inside Nine years old.

Now there is a period in the mid teen age years when children begin to challenge the rules. Especially the family rules.  Parents try to suppress this thinking it's a bad thing. It's not it's a natural developmental stage. The battle continues to bubble along. Nobody wins the battle and eventually they leave home and get a new parents . Society. 

Society as a rule giver. 

Societal and institutional parents are beginning to dominate the life of the late teenager as they get their first job and begin to take more control over their lives. And it is now that they begin all over again to learn a new set of rules. 

A lot of people will go back into the 'concrete' stage. They believe that they are doing well because they are following the rules and their happiness or wellbeing is at the other end of the rainbow. They say to themselves I'll get a promotion and that'll make me happy. like it was when they learned the rules at school get a good set of grade and you’re doing well, now the rule is when they get the next new gadget or the new partner or the first house then they'll be happy. 

And people fall into comfort zones here and begin to play safe and adopt stereotypes and go through repeated behaviours. 

Then, if you’re ’lucky’, we experience a crisis that causes us to question the value of those rules that you've simple accepted up to this point. You enter a period called the 'Disease of meaning' 

For most people it's middle age when they begin to question the rules again. Perhaps serious illness or a loss of job. Los of confidence or a death in the family. The crisis is formed around the statements such as "I believed if I followed the rules I'd be happy and contented but it hasn't delivered. I'm not happy!'

Destination Addiction is the term coined by Robert Sheldon to describe a compulsive behaviour driven by an erroneous belief that happiness lies at the end of the next rainbow in our lives . 'Next Friday night. Next holiday. The next car or pair of shoes. Next time I get wasted or to the gym'. Now, because we mistakenly believe that the happiness we seek must be out there we are losing sight of the importance of the here and now. We seem to believe that we can find wellbeing and meaning in 'stuff' and the outside world. Happiness lies over there for many people at the end of lots of different rainbows. 

To get us through this period of real pain, of ' purgatory ' we adopt one of two strategies Anaesthetic or Distraction. Drink and drugs or affairs, sex ,gym work outs or shopping trips or we bury our questioning selves behind mountains of work. We become workaholics to try to distract ourselves rather than face that nagging question What does it all mean? Why aren't I happy ?

Happiness is within . As a personal and performance coach at Swordfish Learning Ltd I work on the assumption that we cannot resolve our sense of unrest or emptiness with an external solution. The clarity, purpose ,identity and meaning you are looking for are in understanding of your own emotions and feelings 

So few people have control of their emotional state.We are stuck in a position not understanding that the way we feel is generated from within. We believe that the causes and the solutions are out there. We make others the culprits for making us feel a certain way. You are triggered by other people but then you do the interpretation of the feeling yourself. You do the making. Happiness is an abstract thing. In other words it doesn't exist. It's not real. We make it for ourselves. We create it and control it. Wow how unbelievably empowering is that?

Now, if you can accept this idea.this simple truth, then you can take yourself from the victim to architect. Agency is yours. You can take ownership of the happiness you are looking for. Crossing this threshold is the most important transition you will ever make. Accept that happiness is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But it's at our end of the rainbow. To do this, start by locating where you are in the universe of emotions and working out the emotions that you need at important times. Next year Ill blog about how we can learn to transfer our emotional state from one thats not working for you to a more productive state.

Gary Thornton is Senior Coach at Swordfish Learning Ltd and Speaker for the Art of  Brilliance. 

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