A man must fill his life with meaning, it is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. – Chaim Potok
No shit it’s hard. As I reflect on this, I’ve known for quite a while that it was up to me to ‘fill my life with meaning.’ But I think I’ve had the notion that discovering what gives my life meaning would be the hardest, that once I figured it out, things would go a lot easier. Now I’m seeing it differently: A) the doing can be as hard as the discovering; B) the level of satisfaction that comes is directly proportional to the hard work expended; and C) the hard work doesn’t stop.
My 27-yr marriage to Robbie is now more satisfying than it’s ever been, but it still requires hard work fairly regularly — yesterday, to be exact. My struggle to ‘discover’ Real Joe as my vocation took a lot of hard work but it’s considerably harder now trying to figure out how to make it sustainable. Figuring out how to ‘be’ as my dad dies is hard work. None of this is automatic. Yet the satisfactions come while the work goes on. And the knowledge that these are some of the things that fill my life with meaning make it a rich experience to savor.