Searching for The Meaning of Life

 by: Halina Goldstein

A member of the Self Improvement Zone asked me the other day: "How is it that we can know what is good for us, yet we don't seem to be able to make a practice out of anything? I go from one author, book, concept, idea to another, thinking one day I will find the answer, and I will no longer have to look. I have enough books to open a bookstore. Is there any one thing you can recommend? Or are we mostly all doing the same thing?? Searching... with no one right answer."

Oh, who am I to answer that...

I met a man once, who at some point lost everything that was home to him, and so he went into a deep emotional crisis. He started asking himself:

What's the point?

What's the meaning of life?

He ended up saying: "Life has the meaning we think it has". The meaning of life is a choice. It's not a fixed answer.

It sounds right to me. I always come back to this one. The right answer is what you believe it is. The world is what you believe it is. Your path in life is what you believe it is.

"But I don't know what it is for God's sake! I don't know what to believe!" you say (or yell? :-)) Even if we don't know, there is a frustration. Meaning, you feel you should know. You want to know. You need to know.

Maybe it's like walking around a strange town, trying to find a home. You try this street and that street, and you're almost there you think, but then again no. After all, you hardly know what you're looking for... You have a feeling, but you don't know what it is.

At times you meet someone on your way who looks like he's found it. And he tells you how, and you follow the directions, and it feels fine - but still, it's like it doesn't lead you to the same place as it has led him.

So you keep on searching. Sometimes you really enjoy this quest. Sometimes it drives you crazy. Sometimes you feel hopeless. Sometimes you feel inspired.

Maybe one day you find it. Somehow. Somewhere. Maybe it is exactly where you were told it will be. Maybe it is exactly how you imagined it to be.

But then, maybe, just maybe, after you've been searching like that for a long, long time, one day you wake up understanding that by now you know every inch of this town. There are no more places you can search. But it's OK.

In fact, you love every street you walked, and every house you've seen, and you care about every person you've met. As a matter of fact... Suddenly you realize that you are home already, and it's not a particular house or street, it's the town itself that's your home. And home feels good...

Maybe I see you there? :-))

Does knowing it change anything? It could... It could change your attitude towards the search itself. As you know, attitude is everything :-)) Now that you know, that you will find the answer, you will find home, how about you relax a little bit more? how about you worry a little bit less? how about you enjoy the search a little bit more? You might just as well...

And you know what? It will open new doors for you, and it will bring you closer to home, closer to the answer, closer to the meaning of life, not in some distant future, but this very moment.

It's here, now.

For more fresh inspiration, personal feedback and real adventure join the www.SelfImprovementZone.com

Copyright © 2004, Halina Goldstein, Blue Lotus Studio, Denmark

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