We can not look for the meaning of life in the same way we look for a lost item of clothing. We have to create it ourselves. We must decide its content and experience it in our own individual way. No one can experience the meaning of life in our place or tell us what gives us a meaning in life, even if all our influence tries.It’s a sad fact that we so easily fall into the traps of advertisers when they try to convince us that happiness lies in buying the right drink, the right clothes, the fancy car, the new mobile phone, the fragrant deodorant. Even the wisest are dazzled by the image cascades of TV commercials or seductive ads that lead us to believe that we too can change our lives if we switch to a new toothpaste. If we only gave ourselves time to think, we would realize that nothing in this world that is offered or denied to us can make us happy unless we ourselves experience it that way. The happiest people who have found meaning in their lives would probably still be happy if they were deprived of all their possessions.
“When a person, who in his physical being is always turned outwards in the belief that happiness is outside her, finally turns inwards and discovers that its source is inside her, this is one of life’s deepest insights” Sören Kierkegaard
You can only live your own life and you only live once. Therefore, for the sake of your own success, you should make the best of your life and not waste your hopes, your dreams and your life. Instead, make sure you exist.
Life and the world hold so many opportunities and chances that are just waiting to be taken advantage of, there are strawberry places everywhere waiting to be discovered. What suits you and what discoveries you want to make is up to you. There is no built-in meaning to life. You have to create the meaning of life. You need to find values that you think are important enough that you feel your life is worth living. But do not look at it negatively. Now the reality is that you have your life in your own hands – you create your own happiness! Happiness is not something that just happens to you, but something that you must strive to achieve.
But as a human being, you have a free will, you can choose how you want to live and if you want, you can change your life at any time. No one else can do this for you, you must take your responsibility as the person you are. And your most important responsibility is: to feel. After what feels right for you
Something fundamental that permeates my whole way of thinking is that we should learn to listen to our inner feeling, as it leads us right in. The feeling is the quality that identifies and integrates what our senses provide us with.
Using our inner feelings does not mean that we repress or neglect our other feelings. Thanks to the right use of one’s inner feeling, we can understand the fact that man is a being of body and soul, of thought and feeling. And if we want to live a full life, we must be integrated. It is through our inner feeling that we become real and motivating. A life without an internal response to whatever we do, means a life without values. Nothing would matter. This would be a life for a robot – not for a human.
Only by listening to our inner feelings can we learn more and determine how we can make the best of life. But it requires independence. We can learn from others, but it is we ourselves who must understand the knowledge, and what it means to us. You should never give up your own opinions to others. Even if your whole social environment thinks differently, it is only by feeling for yourself that you can decide what is right and wrong for you.
And if everyone else says you have to change, compromise and give in, you should still stick to what you have come to through your inner feeling. That’s the only way you can stick to what’s important to you.
And if it is right for you to feel and think for yourself and act on your opinions, then you also have the right to feel and think for yourself and act on your opinions. A good society is a free society that allows people to strive to be who they are without banning, hindering and regulating. A society where people are not tools for others ‘goals, or patches for others’ wounds, but have the right to live for their own sake and strive for their own meaning with life and their happiness.
Most of us go through life and believe that our happiness and unhappiness is largely determined by events around us and other people’s reactions. Everything that usually feels like our happiness is due to luck or bad luck for which we ourselves are not responsible. Luck or bad luck. Luck means moving forward. So it goes without saying that you said it was lucky, because you moved forward in one way or another. But you created that turn yourself. It was not something that happened without a cause, it was you who created it so that you moved forward. Bad luck means not moving forward. It is just as obvious that you are saying bad luck, because you did not move forward, that you were standing in the same place.
It is you who will go your way in your own way, and if you dare, you have an inner security that allows you to do it, then you make a turn, you move forward. You believe in yourself and therefore you can move forward. You can always choose whether to take a trip or a bad luck. Life is movement and movement must always be free. We forget that harmony is an inner matter and that it is from a harmonious mind that we experience a harmonious world.
Yes, these questions revolve around us and they become more apparent when we feel bad or when something happens that we think is difficult or unnecessary. The answers to the questions are many, depending on what you believe in, what you want to believe in and what you have found yourself as your life lies. What you read on this page are my own truths. I have received these truths through a deep search, feeling and with a logical thinking about how things are connected to each other. If we have a predetermined destiny? No, I answer that. I see it as if we live NOW. That everything happens now. We create our lives now.
What you have with you in your backpack will be reflections and images in your life. You are always
in the right place and at the right time and meet the right people because you yourself create what you experience. The earlier in life you have the opportunity to break your life patterns. Is it actually an advantage, because the longer you go in a life pattern, the harder it becomes to break it. Many times it is the case that you already as a small child know and felt what you want to express, but you did not have enough inner security within you, so then you change and live for others, to be accepted. So it’s about you having certain things to learn and you never get away with it, but how you go the way and how you choose to deal with what you encounter, you create for the moment. So that’s why I say you’re creating your own destiny here and now.
When you have a hard time leaving something that has hurt and hurt you, it is because you still follow the same life pattern as before, the same life pattern that hurts you. The wounds heal when you have built up the inner strength within you, when you have changed your life patterns. When you yourself dare to choose the life you want to live, when you dare to say YES to life and no to what you do not want. Then you start living life.
Life is movement. Life moves forward. Life has a big goal and many small ones. We set the small goals between birth and death. You are born with the goal of death. But death is not a goal you strive for. What I want to convey is that our goals are a pursuit of unmet needs. In order to meet your inner needs, you must see and learn from the path to your goals. So it is the path you go, your movement, that is important, the movement that comes from within yourself. The road should be fun and it is if you move as your inner desire. As you understand more and more of creation, your path becomes interesting and exciting and what you previously thought were obstacles in your path, now becomes a fun task to deal with.
When you give birth to something new, when a thought or feeling arises, you set a goal at the same time. The goal is thus the end of what you gave birth to. You leave it and at the same time give birth to something new, which also gets a goal. To feel good on the road, you need to be sensitive to the signals from your true self and be compliant with its signals. Our soul always leads us right, even when it feels heavy and awkward. Then you have found something important to learn.
When it feels really difficult physically, mentally or spiritually, it is because you have not listened to your inner feeling. Then it is important to understand the symbols, which show what you are holding back within you, in order to be able to change stagnation to movement again. When your movement stagnates, it becomes heavier for you to move forward on your path. Stagnation is a blockage of your inner true self. The onset of stagnation is due to fears. Fear is always based on our acceptance of the expression of our inner feelings. Life is a game, a love game. What you are looking for is love for yourself and for everyone else. So keep in mind that the one who seeks, it finds.
How do you know you’re right? It is when your inner self vibrates with the joy of life and power and you feel that what you are doing almost goes by itself. It is when your passion for life is awakened and you have woken up from your slumber. Listen to your inner voice, your true self, and intuition. Look for this inner confirmation and you will know when you are on the right path.
One dilemma is that when you choose something, you automatically give up something else. Life consists of a long chain of choices and actions and the important thing is to follow the flow, dare to have confidence in what is happening and have confidence that it will be good. Your insights lead you to the alternative you personally think is best. And the more you work with your personal insights and develop them, the easier it is to take a clear personal stand.
It can be difficult to change your old habits and it is impossible to change other people, if they do not want to. The only thing you can do is change yourself, through your choices, actions and decisions. Change is not something you do either, it is something you allow in your life. It happens by itself when you are ready for it. The art is not to resist without daring to let it happen. An adversity, crisis or illness can be your greatest help and teacher on the path to discovering yourself. It forces you to be confronted with what you absolutely do not want to see within yourself. It makes you dare to take a path that you otherwise would not have taken.
Life does not have to be that complicated. It takes a little practice and experience for you to develop, and you need to make mistakes and face trials. Life is not something to be controlled, it is to be lived.
The temptation to react with anger, depression, anxiety or excitement exists because we have interpreted the impressions we get from the outside world. Such interpretations can only be based on an incomplete capacity for experience. Then we linger on events from the past or try to predict future events, then we live in a fantasy world. What is real in our lives is what is happening now. We prevent the possibility of new healthy experiences when in the present we try to relive memories of events from the past, whether they are painful or pleasant or try to predict the future. Therefore, we are in constant conflict over what is really happening in the present and unable to directly experience the opportunities for happiness that exist around us all the time.
To feel the joy of life is to feel commitment and desire to live. Joy of life and happiness is an inner state. When we are happy, elated and happy, we are more open to life, with a greater ability to see the situation clearly and better equipped to cope with the daily stresses. A little pointed, I would like to say that during our upbringing we get to learn everything except what is essential, namely how to live in joy and happiness, how to get a sense of personal value and personal dignity.
It is thus important to find the joy of life, to discover the positive in life. One thing we can certainly establish. Joy of life is not linked to material welfare! Instead, it is perhaps the many small and often overlooked daily moments, sometimes banal and predictable, that build up happiness and joy in the long run. Fortunately, we can find joy in many areas of life e.g. in love, work, in studies in exercise or in dance, music and song.
Say YES to life !, YES to miracles, to joy, to despair. YES to pain, YES to what I do not understand. Try YES. ALWAYS try. Try POSSIBLE. Try HOPEFUL. Try I WANT and try I CAN. ” Leo Buscaglia
It is extremely important to strive for the joy of life, to create faith in the future and to believe in myself as a human being. To become clear about my values, get me an overview of life, see the context and understand the meaning of life. To create trust in myself and others and perhaps also in a higher power.
WHAT IS A MEANINGFUL LIFE
Before we start thinking about what we should do to have a meaningful life, we need to define the concept meaningfully. It is a feeling that is based on the fact that we see a deep meaning in our lives. Meaningful also includes the ability to feel gratitude and security in life. To experience the feeling of true meaning is the ultimate goal of every human being.
All people also make attempts to create happiness in their lives. But somewhere in our quest to have a meaningful life, there is a gross misinterpretation of the term. In the eyes of most people, meaningfulness is the same as satisfaction. Therefore, we are surprised when things that in the beginning give us a strong satisfaction suddenly cease to mean something to us. We immediately need a new stimulus, to balance our inner feeling of emptiness.
Many people believe that meaning is created with something as simple as exclusive things. The reason for the accident is simply a lack of external assets. But even a shiny Mercedes CL 600 gets older with time, and then we need a faster model to get new kicks. We get used to time and constantly need new, stronger stimuli to end up in a trance again. We have a hard time experiencing meaningfulness with what we have and must constantly have more. The whole of life becomes a search for external confirmation. Meaningfulness based on material things is very vulnerable. The material is perishable and the reality around us is constantly changing. Real meaning is not perishable, since it is created independently of material things. Meaningfulness is lasting, satisfaction is temporary. We need to find an inner meaning,
It is possible to compensate for meaninglessness temporarily
It is quite possible to mitigate one’s misfortune through temporary satisfaction. Some people buy a new car, others constantly change relationships and some eat too much food or drink too much alcohol. But since the feeling of dissatisfaction always comes from within, it cannot be dissolved with any external substitute.
The highest, common goal for all people is that we all want a meaningful life
There is no human being who wants to experience meaninglessness. All people also have an idea of why they do not live meaningfully. It is usually about external needs, such as lack of money, confirmation and status. These needs have become a substitute for what we really need. At the same time, we then remove focus from our real needs, which feel painful to be reminded of.
We often believe that money and success should be able to make life meaningful
The goal for most people is therefore to make as much money as possible, in order to then finally be happy with life. People with a lot of money, great power or high status are often even more aware of their misfortune. They live in abundance, but something is still missing. The solution will be to chase even greater success and even more confirmation. We try to fill our inner needs with superficial confirmation. Admittedly, you can have money, success and status, and also be happy. The difference between an unhappy and a happy person is not that the happy person is prettier, smarter or more successful. The difference is that the happy man has an inner conviction of his own worth. Her perception of her own worth is not based on external factors. Real happiness – and that’s what all people are looking for is independent of external factors.
How can rich people be unhappy?
External desires, such as money, power and status, are often overshadowed by our real needs. It is no wonder that rich and successful people are still unhappy because they have not met their real needs. Many people who are dissatisfied with their lives believe that the reason is external factors. Roger and I were in the United States a couple of years ago, where a woman we got to know said to me, “How can I be happy, when my husband never buys me jewelry?” She sounded really sad, and hoped like most others that the accident could be reversed with the help of a large enough diamond ring. What she really meant was: “How can I be happy, when I do not feel loved by my husband?”. Other people can not make you happy, even if they want to. They can confirm you by saying what you want to hear and give you everything you ask for. But the satisfaction you experience is short-lived. If you lack inner conviction about your worth, no one can compensate for the lack for you. The woman in the example above could have received thousands of pieces of jewelry from her husband, without being happy. Her real need is to feel loved, and not even the world’s largest diamond ring can make her feel loved.
Is lack of money the reason for the accident?
It is at least the most common reason people give as an explanation for why they do not feel comfortable with their lives. Believe me when I say that money is never the real reason why a person is not happy. Through our work we have been in contact with many very successful people, and not a single one of them feels that success has made them happy as human beings. When asked what their highest desire is, the answer is usually “to be able to appreciate myself and rejoice in the success I have created”. They know they should be happy, but they can not. Usually they think that the solution is to make more money. “I need my own private jet to feel satisfied with life.” This may sound absurd to someone who can barely afford to pay their bills.
To be happy presupposes self-esteem
If very rich people are still not happier than anyone else, then what is it that says that your life would have a greater value if you had greater material assets? The truth is that we would be just as happy or unhappy as we feel today; external things can not affect it. If we are not happy and grateful today, we will not be happier and more grateful with money and success. Then many say “but life is at least a lot easier if you have money / beauty / status?”. It depends on. If you do not feel any inner value, you will always find reasons not to be happy. “I am certainly rich, beautiful and admired, but there are still those who are much better off than I am and I have sacrificed a lot to get here.” People always find acceptable reasons not to be happy,
We all have the same conditions to create happiness
What I want to say is that the path to true happiness is through yourself. The explanation we give for our lives being incomplete is seldom correct. False beliefs about what creates happiness in life, will keep you in a state of dissatisfaction and prevent you from reaching your ideal state. You may think it’s money, success or respect you must have. It is a completely wrong performance. Many people think it sounds like a cliché, but you have the same conditions as all other people to be happy, it is not a privilege for a select few. At that point, everyone is equal. You may not think so right now, but that’s my strong belief. This is an important insight as we strive to create satisfaction in life. It is necessary to distinguish real needs from external needs. When we can distinguish this,
We search in the wrong places
The problem when we oppose our own happiness is that it happens unconsciously. Do we ask anyone: “Do you want to be unhappy?” the answer is: “Of course not”. We then ask, “Why are you not happy?” the answer is usually: “I have a bad relationship / a stressful job / poor finances / weight problems”. We do not want to be unhappy, but we do not know what to do to change the feeling. The mistake most people make is to look for happiness in the wrong places, and hang on to the wrong things when they state the reasons for their misfortune.
We have a hard time being grateful
There is a saying: “The healthy have 1000 desires, but the sick have only one.” People often complain about small annoyances in life, until something radical happens. It could be a death in the immediate vicinity, an illness or an accident. Suddenly you come to an understanding of what really matters, and understand how happy you really should be over what you otherwise take for granted. When we go through a crisis, we realize the significance of things that are otherwise self-evident. However, this effect is usually short-lived. Soon we will see again how difficult it is to live, so how can one feel grateful for it? One woman said in one of our courses: “My life is about paying bills, taking care of everyone else, and then falling asleep exhausted in front of the TV when the children have gone to bed. Who do you think thanks me for that? No! What reason do I have to be happy ”? She’s right, it’s hard to be happy when you do not understand your real needs. The woman hoped that the self-sacrifice would lead to her feeling significant. Instead, she felt bitterness and resentment toward those who took advantage of her kindness.
Success does not always lead to happiness
I’ll tell you about a young man who started an education with us. On the surface, he has everything a man can dream of. When he started his career, he did not own much more than a mattress to sleep on. (In retrospect, he has said that this period was the happiest in his entire life). He moved around among his friends waiting to break through. The success came, and from only owning a mattress, he was now able to show off assets such as a beautiful house with magnificent sea views, several Porsche and Mercedes cars, a boat and various other symbols of his success. He also had a beautiful wife who had just given birth to their first child – a golden-haired little boy. On the surface, he really had everything a man could dream of. But despite the fact that he has now created something he could only dream of before when he lay and slept on a mattress, he was inconceivably indifferent to the life he now lived. “All these things only give me anxiety, I prefer not to think about how good I am,” he sighed. Every time he got in one of his cars or went out with the boat, he got an indescribable anxiety of not being worth all this luxury. He could therefore not rejoice in anything that reminded him of his success. The feeling of not being worthy of success also ruined everything. This led to him cheating on his wife, making reckless investments and selling the cars, the boat and the house. The only thing he has left is a strong feeling of not being worthy of happiness. When we do not know our inner value, we also make sure to fail to prove how useless we are. This is a self-sabotage that rarely happens consciously, but where we see the results in the form of the chaos we create around us.
What is it that gives life real value, if we can not find it in external confirmation?
If we really want to find a deeper meaning in our lives, and all people do, we must also begin to examine ourselves and the life we live today. No wonder people are unhappy. Of course, most people would like to take care of their body, take better care of their close relationships, spend time in nature and find some respite in life. But we do not have time. It is only after all the musts that it becomes possible to squeeze in a couple of minutes for all that you really feel good about. If there is time left over, which it rarely does. We say: “Sure, I want to be able to devote myself to everything you should, but I do not have time.” And then one wonders why it is so difficult to feel satisfied.
It is not wrong to strive for success; but if it means that we become totally exhausted on the road, one may wonder if it is worth all the effort. Success usually has as its purpose that we should be confirmed rather than that it is based on pure joy. Such success will never give us inner harmony, because outer confirmation is not enough to fill our inner void. To be happy, we need to consider our emotional needs. They cannot be fulfilled from the outside.
As long as we prioritize external needs, it is difficult to feel any deeper meaning in life. We see it as most important to make a career, earn as much money as we can and perform a lot of self-imposed assignments. Then we will also take part in the enormous flow of information that washes over us every day. You have to keep up with the latest. Despite the fact that the majority of everything that is shown in our media is misery and violence and meaningless rubbish, we see it as our duty to stay “updated”. Not because it makes us particularly uplifted, and we rarely engage in the tragedy that is portrayed anyway. We usually just get even more depressed. A journalist told me, “It’s selfish not to take part in other people’s misery.” She is partly right; it is selfish to care only for oneself.
Focus on your real needs
The mistake most people make is to look for happiness in the wrong places, and hang on to the wrong things when they state the reasons for their misfortune. The real values of life are invaluable. They are often overlooked and are not as easy to take on as material values, but it is only when we prioritize these needs over external needs that we create quality of life. Fair value is experienced, among other things, by:
spread joy around
express gratitude
have an open mind
do not judge and criticize
be flexible and permissive
forgive and let go of what has been
accept yourself
praise and show appreciation
see and experience love of the living
nurture their close relationships
devote time to what really gives you joy
set aside time for silence
seek knowledge and development,
There are more examples, and many different ways to express these needs. You decide how to apply them.
YOUR TASK
Part 1
The first step is to honestly answer the following questions: What needs do you put first today? What is most important to achieve for you? How do you prioritize your time? Do you feel completely happy today? If not here’s a new product just for you! Write down the answers to each question. Do not evaluate your answers, as what comes up shows where you are right now.
Part 2
For the next two weeks, focus on meeting an important need every day. You should write down seven important needs you want to focus on, and link a need to each of the days of the week. During the second week, repeat the procedure, focusing on the same needs as during the first week. Every day, you should focus on expressing an important need throughout the day. You will find several examples under the heading “Focus on your real needs” on the previous page and you may also have your own suggestions. Choose what feels extra important to you. Ex. “On Tuesday, I will focus on praising and showing appreciation.” Notice what reaction you create and what you get back.
Important to remember
Behind every external reason we give to our accident, there is an internal need that has not been confirmed. Happiness is not so much about what you actually have, but about the ability to feel the value of life. Start practicing by finding joy in simple things using the task above.
50 QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR PASSIONS
Let’s go straight into it!
If you want to live a meaningful life, then you need to spend some time deciding what you want to do with your life, and then make the effort to live that life with passion.
It is up to you!
No one else will do it for you.
So take some time out from your hectic day to day routine, and think about the following questions.
- What is the meaning of my life?
2. If I had to take a best guess at the meaning of my life, what would it be?
3. Who am I?
4. What is the most important thing in my life?
5. What do I love to do, more than anything else?
6. If I had only six months left to live, what would I want to achieve?
7. What would I like to leave to the world?
8. What would I do with my life if I knew I could not fail?
9. If money, or time, or current responsibilities were not an issue, what would I want to do with my life, more than anything else in the world?
10. What activities have I discovered that give me the most pleasure?
11. What do I still want to learn?
12. When I was a kid, what did I have to dream about in my life?
13. What has been the biggest challenge I have faced so far in my life? Can I help other people overcome the same challenge?
14. What challenge would I love to overcome, and then help others achieve the same?
15. Who are the people I admire the most?
16. Why do I admire these people?
17. How would I define their passion?
18. What are the qualities these people possess that I would also like to be known for?
19. What is the biggest dream I have ever had for my life?
20. What subjects did I like most in school?
21. Which sport have I been most involved in?
22. What arts or crafts have I been most engaged in?
23. What social activity have I been most engaged in?
24. What hobbies do I pursue?
25. What hobbies do I wish I did more of?
26. What would I want to do if only other people did not think it was stupid?
27. Where in the world would I most like to live?
28. Who would I like to live with?
29. Where in the world would I like to work?
30. Who would I most like to work with?
31. What would a perfect day look like?
32. Is there a spiritual side of me waiting to be released?
33. What would I like to do, right now, that would bring me the most joy or pleasure?
34. What special gifts do I have that I could give to the world?
35. What is it that makes me cry with joy, or brings tears to my eyes?
36. What would I like to do this weekend, just for fun?
37. If I could be given the power to change the world, what would I do?
38. If I had three wishes, what would they be?
39. What is it that scares me a little, but that would be really exciting if I did?
40. What does my heart tell me to do with my life?
41. What qualities do I possess that I am really proud of?
42. What have I done in my life that I am very proud of?
43. If I had time to contribute to charity what would it be?
44. What do I usually do when I suddenly realize that time has flown by, and all my focus has been on a task?
45. What do I want to do on my next vacation?
46. Who in history would I most love to be and why?
47. What do I do that I do not regret doing, so far in my life?
48. At the end of my life, what would I most regret not doing?
49. What is the meaning of my life?
50. If I had to take a best guess at my passions, and just get started on something what would it be?
