How to Stop Struggling and Find Meaning
It’s already here.
I’m struggling with getting older.
I’m struggling with having a teenager.
I’m struggling with lack of presence.
The convenience of owning a computer so small it fits in my pocket “connecting” me to billions of people only makes me feel more alone than I ever have.
Disconnection.
I’m struggling with the lack of kindness, empathy, and patience I see in the world.
Brené Brown says that this unsettling feeling as we age, or an unraveling as she calls it, is a whisper from the universe that you don’t have much time left. That girl, you better start living your life in a way that matters to you, because it doesn’t last. You are closer to the end than you are the beginning.
Shit is getting real.
If you haven’t already figured out what questions you’ll ask yourself when you are at the end of your life, stop reading this now and go figure them out.
What will matter to you in the end?
How will you evaluate your life when you have a few weeks to live, a few days, a few hours, a few minutes. If you can get clear on your values and live in a way that is in alignment with them now, each day, while you’re alive and vibrant, you’ll limit regret when you’re facing the end of your life.
Anyone who has worked in hospice will tell you people dying don’t care about things. They don’t think about the things they care about the people in their life they will miss, immediate friends and family.
What ultimately matters is the depth of your relationships.
Figure out what is important to you, so you can say, “It mattered, I mattered to someone.”
Each night before bed, Brendon Burchard, a high-performance coach, and author, asks himself three questions to evaluate his day. He knows his end of life questions — the questions he will use to assess time here.
Since he knows the questions he’ll ask himself one day, Brendon is clear on the outcome he is aiming for daily. He goes about his day, mindful about what matters to him most and acts with intention.
For the last 24 years, he ends each night asking himself,
Did I live today?
Did I love today?
Did I matter to someone today?
Age better
Brené Brown talks about handling aging with curiosity. Get curious about yourself. Figure out who you are now. Now is the time. There is no other time.
What is it that makes you tick, what would make you jump out of bed each morning, what gives you joy, what puts you in the moment and makes you feel alive and present, so you can show up fully for your partner, kids, work, creativity. So you aren’t just going through the motions. You are present in your life.
Gratitude
Show gratitude for getting older; it means you are still alive.
Take inventory and figure out what life means to you. Be curious, ask yourself three questions to get clarity on what brings meaning into your life. This is different for each one of us. Journaling or meditating on these questions can bring about the answers more quickly.
Ask yourself,
- When do I feel vibrant?
- When and with whom do I feel a connection?
- What do I do that gives my life meaning?
One way to find meaning is to find presence. One way to quell anxiety is to be in the moment. One way to stop struggling is to breathe.
Vibrancy
The definition of vibrancy is the state of being full of energy and life.
What makes you feel alive? Where do you feel vibrancy in your life? What places make you feel vibrant? What connections makes you feel alive?
When do you feel most vibrant?
- Taking care of yourself
- Eating well
- Exercising
- Hiking
- Drinking water throughout the day
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Taking supplements
- Going to sleep around the same time every night
- Getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night
- Being around friends and family
- Getting your one thing done by noon
Connection
Most of us want to feel connected.
I have the opposite feeling of connection after 30 minutes of mindlessly scrolling through social media.
Social media has propagated the ease of hate and judgment, it steals your energy, vibrancy, and feeling of connection. Notice how your energy plummets after 30 minutes of scrolling. There is increasing incidences of loneliness in our society even though we are more “connected” through technology.
We all want deeper human connections.
As humans, our most profound need it to be seen, heard, and valued.
Where do you go to find connection, not just with others but with yourself? Where do you find connection with your partner, your family, your work, your craft, your writing, your humanity?
If you look for it, the moment is imbued with connection if you are present to feel it.
Each moment has meaning if you give it meaning; the smile your child gives you when you get her from school. When your husband comes through the door at the end of the day and you stop what you are doing and kiss him. The connection you feel when you are following your art or mastering your craft.
Don’t wait to find connection, that moment is gone. Go out and be the connecter.
Connect to those who matter to you. Be all in. Be fully available in the moment with those you love, with what you love to produce, with who you are.
Meaning
Make you life count. You only get one that we know of. Make it have meaning. Your life matters. It matters to someone that you are here, now.
What we do with our days makes a difference. Each day adds up to a life. You mean something to someone.
When you imbue meaning in your life, moment by moment, by being present with the people you love, experiences you go after, the work you master and the creativity you produce— things that are essential to you — you’ll find meaning. Life has meaning when you have reverence for the blessings in your life.
When you show up fully, you won’t miss the meaning. It’s already here. You only have to see it.
