On Making a Life from Within

From the moment we are born, human life seems shaped, at times almost driven, by a peculiar kind of search going on within us. So much so, in fact, that much of our lives is spent trying to understand what, exactly, we are searching for. Some of us will spend a lifetime grappling with the nature of God. Others may spend years looking back toward who they were before their suffering began. Still others may wonder why, as life goes on, we feel compelled to change something in our past that cannot be undone.

Searches like these are often placed under the larger idea that human beings are creatures engaged in the craft of making meaning out of existence itself. But for me, it is not where the human story begins. Before we can make meaning of something, anything, in life, we first have to find what becomes meaningful to us.

But early on, this creates a dilemma. How do we begin to figure out what deserves our attention in a world we do not yet understand? How do we know what will become important before we have had enough life experience to know ourselves clearly? This is where the search in life often becomes especially difficult: we are not born knowing what will later become meaningful to us.

Part of the problem is that, from the beginning, we are surrounded by endless possibilities that may interest us, while other people are also telling us what we should pay attention to. To complicate matters further, what helps one person find their way in life may not help another person find theirs. This is why we cannot simply follow what is meaningful to others and expect it to become the answer for us. At some point, if we are not to feel disconnected from what helps us feel more alive, the question of how to go about living our lives has to become a more inward and individual form of exploration.

Near the start of the pandemic, John had been feeling more uneasy and restless than he cared to admit. His wife had noticed it too, and suggested he speak with someone. At first, John politely brushed off her suggestion, telling her it was probably just the added stress of the pandemic. Then one afternoon, he found himself watching an old episode of As the World Turns.