How to stop feeling meaningless
Trisha Lewis
Getting you out of your head and into the heads of others! Find and own your passion, personality and power - stop self-squashing. Podcast guesting and talk-giving prep and rehearsal | Author ?Speaker ?Podcast Host.
Stop feeling meaningless by spotting the manufactured meaningful messages and taking these 7 simple steps to boost your self-worth.
The ‘meaning of life’ is no longer as clear as it was once supposed to have been. Never have so many humans been uncertain about their larger purpose beyond their daily grind and nightly pleasures. Old assumptions threaten to collapse, leaving one naked. Many people’s assumptions have already collapsed and they are naked.?Theodore Zeldin
If you have yet to delve into the delights of?‘The Hidden Pleasures of Life’ by Zeldin? — put it on your to-do list.
His perspective on human meaningfulness is enriched by stories from past and present and imagined future.
For now, I want you to consider your meaningfulness.
Have you ever privately or publically expressed these frustrations?
Easy to read those bullet points rationally, and think - ‘daft’.
I have thought every one of them — more than once.It has taken conscious effort to listen to my inner-squasher that brain dumps rubbish like — ‘what’s the point’ and ‘I am just a nobody’.
Later in this article I reveal the steps I have taken to clean out the ‘I am meaningless’ rubbish.
I know I am not alone.
But, these inciduous inner-scripts operate in most of us — at a low hum of emotion unchecked by rationality and we’re not brilliant at pausing to question default thinking.
In fact, we easily fall into the ‘should’ traps fueled with fears, assumptions,?comparisonitis? and all that impostor syndrome stuff!
As?Confucius? says —?‘Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated’.
Yes Confucius - very true!
So we need to do the forensics, take some reflection time and keep questioning our thinking patterns.
What's going on when you feel 'meaningless'?
When you consider your ‘meaningfulness’ you start from a place of feeling pretty small in the universe — or as?Robert Greene? puts it in ‘The Laws of Human Nature’ — you feel your?‘puniness’?as an individual?‘in a world with billions of others in a vast universe.'?
A perfectly understandable feeling, unless you are full of the self-delusions researched by?Dunning and Kruger!
But when you now consider the sub-worlds of social media, news and Netflix, you spot how thee all add to this sense of puniness.
Are we being zombified into believing that being ‘meaningful’ requires having thousands of followers, being famous or inventing a new planet?
Stop!
Get back to the meaningful meaning of meaningful.
Start with you and create a wave of reframing through conversation, curiosity and collaboration.
Let’s start a movement.
The ‘Meaningful Meaning of Meaningful Movement’
I just started it!
Not the catchiest of titles but the observant amongst you will have spotted the 4'M’s.4 ‘M’s is a business management tool and also used?in the sphere of mental health ?by Dr Sue Varma.
Both have interesting links to my proposed movement — but I will leave you to go down those rabbit holes.I want to move on with the mission.
The mission is:
Press pause, question and bin the soul-drowning forces of manufactured meaningfulness.
Rediscover your true, social-media-less, self-worth.
Manufactered meaningul is stuffed with prerequisites and quests :-
All of which you can find headlined or acted out across social and non-social media (except the tin boat one maybe).
There are plenty of positives associated with the internet and even social media - but there are negatives too of course. That's life.
When it comes to the negatives, I love how writer?Helen Lewis, ?in conversation with?Rafael Behr, ?describes social media as ‘information obesity’.
Social media leaves us feeling stuffed but not satisfied.
I recommend you read her piece?in the Atlantic? about Jordan Peterson — it is a case study on the meaninglessness of ‘manufactured meaninfulness’.
Yet the relentless demands of modern celebrity — more content, more access, more authenticity — were already tearing the psychologist’s public persona in two.?
Helen Lewis
This all feels a bit dark — so let’s turn our attention to something more satisfying and meaningful .
Let’s formulate some action points for this new movement.
Take meaningful action — step by meaningful step.
Seven soul-enriching , world healing forces of real meaninfulness.
It starts with you.
Write your definition of ‘being meaningful’.
Consider these ‘back to basics’ ingredients of being meaningful:
it is important not merely to imitate others or act in a mechanical and alienated way. … The value of what I do is not less if, in acting deliberately and authentically, I am also acting in ways that others commonly choose.?Iddo Landau
To be meaningful you need to cultivate curiosity.
I believe that curiosity is the core quality of a meaningful existence.
Curiosity leads you down fascinating new roads — roads less taken.
If you are enthused by your discoveries by all means share on social media — but do so with an intrinsic motivation rather than the extrinsic one of being loved and followed.
The richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice…?Daniel Pink
Memories of?self-worth deflating messages ?received.
As a 12 year old
Puberty is a big deal for all of us — and for a girl it is that first period that hits home in a huge way.So picture the scene.I had a bit of blood visible after going to the loo.
I am 12 and many of my friends have started the period thing.
I feel less meaningful than those who own the ‘oh it’s my period’ line — excusing them from swimming or PE.I run to my mother to share the news of this spot of blood.
Is this the moment? Is this when I become part of the special ones?
My mother, busy peeling potatoes, barely registered my presence.
She dismisses me with something like — ‘don’t be silly — it isn’t that.’She was right.But… too late. Message received. The journey to become a woman is not meaningful. I am a nobody.
As a 17 year old
I finally get walked home by the boy I have a mad crush on.
We do that messy kissing thing. (This was the 70's).
The next day I get a report back from his best mate.
‘He says you kissed ok, but there wasn’t much else about you.’
Message received. I am a superficial meaningless person. I am a nobody.
As a 20–50 year old
Messages carelessly delivered in passing comments by my parents.‘
Oh — her daughter has just gone to university…
’‘You know Jane you were at school with — apparantly she is working in New York — with a big company…
’‘What are you doing?’ asks my father on his death bed.
?‘I’m in a production of My Fair Lady with the operatic society — crowd scenes’, I answer.
?‘Oh — is that all’, says my father.
Message received. Unless I have a starring role in the West End - I am a nobody.
I am not a nobody?
None of us are nobodies!
I share the 'baggage' purely to assure you that you are not alone!
Whilst the messages will vary, the feeling will resonate.
I also know that with a bit of unsquashing work - you can stop the 'nobody' feeling.
I have done the work.
What did it take to find my meaningful?
Tried and tested.
I will conclude as I began — with a Zeldin perspective which reminds us to stop, press pause and ramp up our curiosity.
Curiosity is meaningul — and having it makes you meaningful.
Nothing limits a person more than these inherited convictions about what is possible and what is not. But history need not be seen as a final judgement on what men and women and children can do. On the contrary, it is a series of unfinished experiments, of missed turnings, of inventions ignored, where trivial accidents often diverted events into directions which have been far from inevitable.?
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All things human squashing and unsquashing are explored in ‘The Mystery of the Squashed Self’.?Available on Amazon .
I have a?YouTube Channel ?with videos on this topic and other communication and confidence tips.
I work with clients on being visible as themselves — confidence growing and clarity finding. Ditching baggage, sharing story and practicing performance.
Details at?www.trishalewis.com
Writing content to make your clients think, feel and take action. Native English writer at Puck Creations. "King of the wholesome blog" according to Jules White.
3 年Let's remember that life is pretty simple. I love that, especially at the moment. Driving through the Italian alps, down to Adriatic coast, eating amazing food, drinking wonderful wine and meeting up with family is a sign that I don't need anything more complicated. It's all very warm at the moment, physically and metaphorically! Thanks Trisha!
Empowering SMEs in handling challenging conversations to strengthen employee relationships using my COMPASS model | DiSC Facilitator| Difficult Conversations Mentoring and Training | LinkedIn Top Voice
3 年Got to agree with the sentence about social education. Spot on. Great thoughtful article Trisha Lewis
Championing the need for good health and balance in a vibrant working environment.
3 年a good read. Just what I needed. Curiosity - hmmmm. I do not know the work of Zeldin but will look him up. Thank you Trisha Lewis