Recently, I read Viktor Frankl’s classic book, “Man’s search for meaning.” In it, he said something that that got me thinking and thinking differently about meaning and calling in life.
He said, “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
In essence, we want to ask life, “what is the meaning of my life?” but Frankl is saying that we should reverse things and see that it is life that is asking us, “what is the meaning of your life?”
There is no general meaning in life. Each person has a specific meaning for life that varies with their season of life and the circumstances they are going through.
You may be shocked when you understand that the tables have been reversed. You can no longer simply cry, complain or beg that something or someone outside of yourself tell you what the meaning of your life is. You have to answer to life itself and tell it what the meaning of your life is. That’s a big paradigm switch.
You may say, “I don’t know” and wonder how are you supposed to know?
The answer is simple.
Listen. Let your life speak and then listen.
I also stumbled over the work of Parker J. Palmer and his book, Let your life speak: Listening for the voice of vocation. In the book, Palmer speaks of how the Quaker saying, “Let your life speak” made an impact in his life and his journey towards finding his vocation or calling.
Here is what Palmer says,
“Vocation, I’ve learned, doesn’t come from willfulness. It comes from listening. That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for “voice.” Before I tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen for what my life wants to do with me.
I’ve come to understand vocation not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received—the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation doesn’t come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I’m not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be.”
How does life speak? How do you listen to your life?
From my experience and research over the years, I’ve found that life speaks through your individual design. Life speaks in similar ways to each of us but we hear and perceive it’s message in ways that are unique to each of us. To know more about your design, read my article on the subject.
You listen by listening to your design. You listen by being self-aware. You listen through self-study, experimentation and self-discovery, advisors, reflection, meditation, and mindfulness.
As Palmer says, “Our lives speak through our actions and reactions, our intuitions and instincts, our feelings and bodily states, perhaps more profoundly than through words. If we can learn to read our own responses, we’ll receive the guidance we need to live more authentic lives. The soul speaks only under quiet, inviting, and safe conditions. If we take some time to sit silently listening, the soul will tell us the truth about ourselves—the full, messy truth.”
As I was meditating over the above thoughts, I couldn’t help but think about John F. Kennedy’s words when he said: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” We need to also reverse the how we approach meaning in life.
We shouldn’t ask, “What can we get out of Life? What can Life do for us? What meaning does Life give to our lives?”
We should instead ask, “What have we been given to give to life? What should we tell Life is the meaning of each of our lives? We should be telling life what we will do for life.”
And to do that, all we need to do is let our life speak and then listen. In doing so, we will understand what our life is, what we have been given, and what we are meant to contribute to life–which is our purpose and calling.