The Subtle Fallacy of Finding Meaning

Finding Meaning

We often talk about meaning and purpose as something we need to find, e.g. “I find meaning in my work” or “I found more purpose once I had a kid.” Like a lot of our phrases, we may speak it without much thought about the implications of our word choice. The verb “find” suggests that meaning is something to be discovered, that it exists somewhere out there if we can only manage to stumble upon it.?

In some ways, this “find meaning” framework accurately depicts our relationship to purpose. Life sometimes provides serendipitous moments that contribute to the meaning we experience; we accidentally sign up for geography instead of geometry, but end up loving maps and travel. Or we finally obtain something we had been seeking for a long time like a big promotion or a close relationship. But in other ways, this view on purpose can be limiting.?

The Problem with Finding

Thinking that we need to find meaning risks promoting a sort of “grass is greener” mentality that makes our sense of purpose contingent upon circumstance. If experiencing meaning depends on sources outside of ourselves, then it’s possible for meaning to be lost, taken away, or even never fully encountered at all. From this view, meaning and purpose become fragile, precarious, and fleeting. It can also entrap us in an endless pursuit of the “next thing”, when the circumstance, relationship, accomplishment, or possession we thought would provide meaning fails to deliver.?

Making Meaning

There is another way to orient ourselves, one that offers greater empowerment and firmer footing. The key is embracing our profoundly human capacity to create meaning.

We do this all the time in ways that are easy to take for granted. For example:

• We dress differently to mark different occasions, professions, cultures, and personality traits. Black is custom for funerals, but not weddings (unless those participating wish to indicate a non-traditional meaning). We make wardrobe choices, not only to adapt to climate or geography or available materials but also to influence how others view us or how we view ourselves.?
• We stop our vehicles at red lights and red octagons (and if we don’t, then we usually stop at the red and blue flashing lights that appear behind us).?
• We spend hours doing labor we might otherwise avoid in order to be given paper and small metal disks with printed symbols on them (or we have numbers added to a bank account that exists on a screen). We then trade that paper and/or digital numbers for pizza or pillows or clothes with brands that we think will impact the way others see us.

Our ability to create and propagate symbolic meaning is the backbone of communal existence. Clothes are more than fabric, traffic signs are more than colored shapes, and money is more than paper all because we assign and accept that they have other meaning. What’s crazy is how we can move through and interact with these intricate systems of symbols and believe that their meaning is inherent or objective, rather than remembering that we, collectively, created them.

Why does it matter?

Because if something was created by us, we can change it.

Granted, not all meaning systems need changing (though, purple police siren lights could be pretty cool). Shifting larger structures of meaning takes time, dedication, and numbers. Fortunately, meaning-making is not just a group activity. We can harness the capacity on an individual level.?

Owning Your Story

This isn’t just cerebral mumbo jumbo. Leveraging our ability to create meaning can swiftly and drastically impact how much purpose we experience. Author Emily Esfahani Smith pulls from psychology, sociology, philosophy, neuroscience, and literature to propose several pillars of meaning, the final of which is storytelling. In her TED talk, “There’s more to life than being happy,” she says:

“Your life isn't just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you're constrained by the facts.”

In other words, it isn’t just the things that happen to us that determine our life’s meaning—it’s the story we choose to tie it all together.

There are striking examples of people creating meaning from stories of tragedy and suffering, from artists like Maya Angelou, to politicians like Nelson Mandela, to activists like Hellen Keller.? For most of us, creating meaning from our life story won’t involve a big audience or extreme circumstances. But even mundane experiences can become worthwhile as we consciously choose what story we espouse. In a famous commencement address, David Foster Wallace describes how a rush-hour stop at the grocery store can be a miserable drag, but that it doesn’t have to be. He claims:

“...if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice…It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”?

None of this means that every situation can easily be made intensely meaningful, or that anyone feeling a lack of direction or purpose has only themselves to blame. It’s far more complicated than plastering on an optimistic facade or ignoring root causes of the painful, boring, and unfair in our lives and society. But even excruciating pain, inescapable tedium, and blatant injustice do not have to be wasted experiences because we have power. You have power. Experiencing meaning is not exclusively reserved for the influential or the skilled. It isn’t the sole purview of the wealthy or famous. We don’t have to wander through our days, crossing our fingers and hoping that we are lucky enough to find meaning. We can make it.?