Meaning Vs Purpose
The time has come for a defining moment, a fork in the road for this blog (I’m still surprised I’m here). The first post. Will it be meaningful to the many, or will I be just another meaningless blogger who thinks they have something to say?
I can’t be certain what you will take away from this (you certainly won’t learn any additional skills in grammar). Putting aside what you will take from it, I can be damn near 100 percent sure that I will find writing this blog illuminating. From the research, the teaching and the writing of this blog, I will learn and grow.
It’s actually very selfish of me.
The one thing you can trust is that I will continue to be selfish, bringing you ideas that I believe is educational and will help you conquer the world.
Now, meaning and purpose.
They sound similar, and both convey something deeper than the general pursuit of life, a progression towards an inner goal or a feeling that one’s life is valuable. In many ways, they are the same. For with purpose comes meaning, but meaning does not always predicate a purpose.
My Year 7 maths teacher, Mr Dunn, said it well:
“A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square.”
I know. It was confusing back then as well. But that is the issue with higher-order thinking. it is always confusing to the uninitiated.
Let us warm up our minds with the Dictionary.com definitions of the two terms (the Oxford Dictionary costs money), just like starting an essay in Year 7.
Meaning: “the end, purpose, or significance of something”
Purpose: “the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc.”
Viktor Frankl taught that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but the “will to meaning.”
He described three ways in which we can find meaning:
Through work.
Through experience or meeting someone.
Through the attitude we choose towards unavoidable suffering.
The last one is important. It highlights that humans can find meaning in almost anything, even unavoidable suffering.
There is a story from Roman times about Horatius, a man who stood alone and held a bridge against a vast opposing army, asking, “How can man die better?”
For in dying well, Horatius had found meaning.
Meaning will come and go throughout each of our lives. It is what makes us feel that we are significant. Within the same job, I have found meaning, lost it, then found it again.
Purpose is a much stronger term and, in fact, a much more difficult avenue of pursuit. Finding the reason for which we, as individuals, exist is not an easy goal. There are not many people I know personally who have discovered theirs, and certainly only a fraction of people in the world have. Purpose links to our figurative soul, individually, of course. It is a joining of what we are good at, what the world needs and what we are passionate about.
Once found, the pursuit of purpose can be all-encompassing. And why would it not be?
If you found THE THING you were meant to do, would you not want to do it ALL of the time?
I will end by saying that a meaningful life is adequate.
Or, rather more optimistically, a meaningful life is a good life (see the next blog for what a good life is), with the chance to be amazing.
But a life filled with purpose has the chance to be transcendent.
Until next time,
Lachy
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