the POWER of words in the discovery of MEANING

'Life' Navigation Using Words - an extrapolation:

Humans are often to be found deliberating and cogitating over the meaning of life. It's a query as old as our species. ~Discovery of the answer will propel a life through time with purpose. A million million thinkers have pondered this. Here are some of my thoughts out loud.

Life is a quest. Even 'the right' find answers every day. Yet there are many more people in search of answers than there are those who know. I see success coming to the purposeful, positive and persevering. 

What it is to know why you are here? The reality is, it probably means you have asked and answered far more questions than the people who don't know. The really successful people, if truth were known, have  braved many mistakes and enriched their navigation technique accordingly. Error forges, steels and galvanises character by ultimately providing answers. Achievement is awarded to the persistently brave. Mistakes are just answers with more growing to do. 

What is the meaning of life? I believe it is to have meaning IN your life. We extract meaning from making sense of the many ingredients that comprise an individual. Once we understand ourselves, perhaps not totally, but better, we then have foundations to build upon. Re-interpreting 'feedback' gives rise to understanding - another word for 'understanding' is 'harmony'. A self-image that we are happier believing in. A personality that we are happy with that we can project to the world, confidently. Wisdom is an understanding of this. 

In the Lexicon of Life there are words that exist that can guide us when we interpret their true meaning: 

'Living' - living is not just about breathing our way through life's journey. It is about how we will live. What will we do to live? How will we feed ourselves and our families? How we get paid for what we do. Payment is not always about money. Our contribution can be recognised in many ways.

'Contribution' - As a citizen how will we contribute? What  will we contribute to better society. It is the opposite of selfishness and involves our whole being.

'To Be' - I am therefore I am. Well it's not necessarily that simple is it. What is it that you are going to do To Be? It forms a big chunk of the answer to 'Why am I here?'.

'Meaning' - It is a tough life lesson to learn, but the practical reality is that most lives require meaning in order that they thrive. It is about listening for and being open to the feedback that living gives back; akin to a bow on a violin generating sound. 

'Purpose'  - along with 'meaning' 'purpose' is a key ingredient in the mix that fuels a life and drives it forward. Purpose instils forward momentum. It provides a reason for being like your internal propulsion system.

'Attitude' - In much the same way that an aircraft's wing must be at just the right attitude to lift a plane in the air, travelling at just the right velocity, so must a life. Attitude is the angle at which we approach life, both physical and mental. The ground, in the case of this metaphor, is the rest of society. 

'Identity' - Who is it looking back at you in the mirror? How will you like that individual? How will you project that image to the rest of society? Everyone I have ever met has a truly great person inside. The problems only arise when we don't give flight to the potential within. When we haven't taken the time necessary to uncover and truly understand the person within. This is where faith in the good comes in. Are you looking at your feet or in the person's eye?

'Love' - It can be an agonizing life lesson to learn, but self-acceptance and learning to love one's self is prerequisite in discovering the part of you that someone else will love. Love is the weave in tapestry of life because it interconnects and perpetuates the whole fabric of society. Love comes in many forms and degrees, success is built on believing in yourself. Only then will others buy into you.

'Conviction' - a word possessing many sides, curiously. The one we're after here is to do with acting with conviction; carrying oneself with certainty. Actions carried-out with conviction tend to be attractive because they are positive and pure. Actions that resonate.

'Attractiveness' - Believe it or not, attractiveness has less to do with physical looks than you might think. It is a powerful word. In certain respects it combines each and everyone of the words above. It is about 'believe-ability'. Attractive people possess the truth of meaning and reason. They have done the workings-out. This is recognised in the way events, actions and materials are attracted to them.

'Vocation' - "A strong feeling of fitness for a particular career" is the definition that my dictionary gives me. A person's working identity. The exercising and bringing-together of all the career attributes bestowed upon the individual by nature. It is my heartfelt belief that everyone I have ever met possesses a vocation. My fear is, so few tap into the life-blood contained within. It's about 'fit'.

'Work' - "the application of human effort to a mental or physical purpose". Perhaps this is why, as a result of increasing automation, so many Humans feel purposeless. The truth is that with an ever-growing population and the rapid, vapid mechanisation of the 'workplace', it is no wonder that more people feel redundant and are redundant. Purposelessness is a dangerously unsustainable 'state' to create in the world; a population without meaning will boil. What will all those workless people do? There will always be work needing to be done. It is simply a case of asking yourself is it work that you want to do and for what purpose and how will your effort be recognised? Effort / Reward, you reap what you sow. Life is brutally Darwinian like it or not.

'Capability' - Is a complex balance between actual ability and potential power. Capability is about the potential prowess a person has to combine their skills and their experience of having practised them. Measuring capability implies an ability to forecast 'ability', coupled with effort invested in improving performance that is applied in the present. Get an objective view. Ask an impartial expert.

'Vitality' - is the quickening of the experience of life relative to the amount of energy invested. A vital person is full of energy resulting from their expending energy enthusiastically aimed at a specific cause. Vitality only arises from the imperative of living life positively. 

'Confidence' - is the net result of liking what you be. It results from positive energy reflected back from your environment for good done.

This short article is aimed at prodding your use of language in the context of working and being. The idea is that we extrapolate our own meaning from considering the meaning of the words we might use to describe our own actions. 

Unless we can recognise, evaluate, describe and visualise our output it will continue to be difficult to extract meaning from what we do. If we cannot see value, how will we feel valued. And there is no greater conundrum in life than being able understand that lives do better when contributing to the greater good. Selfish lives, self-contained, inward-looking rarely produce for the greater good.

Happiness is balance. Success is sustainability.