Weekly Soul. Week 7 - Living Your Own Life
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie.
-7-
People say that
what we’re all seeking is meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re
really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive
so that our life experiences on a purely physical plane will have resonances
within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of
being alive.
Joseph Campbell
You are alive as you live your own life.
There are so many forces that draw us to
live other people’s lives. We live in a culture that relentlessly champions the
external trappings of success. Newer cars are better than older. Bigger houses
are better than smaller. Higher salaries are better than lower. Being one of
the vice presidents of your company is better than being among the line staff. Being
young and sleek is better than being older and heavy. There is nothing
inherently wrong with such things, but ultimately, they are false gods, poor places
to hang your hat for your emotional and spiritual life. You are alive as you
give expression to your own innermost being.
For that matter, choices that you make
that run counter to our “bigger and better” cultural values—training as a
social worker to work in prisons, buying a used Prius rather than a mega F-350—will
ultimately ring hollow if they move you to lead somebody else’s life, rather
than your own. Aliveness starts on the inside.
In 2004, psychologists Christopher
Peterson and Martin Seligman published a momentous compendium that summarized
several years’ work exploring human character. Character Strengths and Virtues (published jointly by Oxford
University Press and the American Psychological Association) arose from
anthropological research and an exhaustive examination of writing, from Plato
and Aristotle to Hallmark greeting cards, about what it means to live a good
life. The resulting framework identifies six “virtues” that are universally
esteemed across time and culture (wisdom, courage, humanity, justice,
temperance and transcendence), and 24 “strengths of character” (such as
curiosity, perseverance, kindness, humility, and appreciation of beauty) that
are “pathways” that enable people to give expression to these virtues. This
work provides the foundation for the modern Positive Psychology movement. You
can explore this further at www.viacharacter.org/.
Follow up research has looked at
relationships among these elements in fine detail, but the basic premise
remains the same. You are hard-wired to have one or more of these character
strengths resonate prominently in your life, and your expression of your
particular strengths of character is closely associated with your life
satisfaction, happiness and well-being. If kindness is a signature strength for
you, then your well-being will be enhanced by being kind. If fairness is a signature strength for you then your
well-being will be enhanced by treating people fairly. If humor is a
signature strength for you then your well-being will be enhanced by making
other people smile or laugh. And so forth.
Aliveness, then, has to do with the ways
in which your activities and relationships are formed by the personal qualities
and values that are vital to you. Your “innermost being.”
This is good news for living in an
imperfect and challenging world. Even in the midst of uninspiring or
challenging times there is a flow of life… of aliveness… in tuning in to the
inner qualities and values that are vital and sacred for you.
I see this all the time. Working with
hundreds of physicians, I can’t count the times I have heard, “There are so
many things that can bring me down… documentation, electronic health records,
productivity requirements… but when I close the door and work with a patient, I
get recharged. I remember that this is why I’m a doctor.” So it is with me,
also. I dutifully attend committee meetings and write grant applications, but
when I meet with someone and help them in some small way to feel more empowered
to be who they really are, it can be exhilarating.
I do
think that we’re seeking meaning in life by the way, but the idea that
aliveness follows the expression of our “innermost being” is right on.
Reflection
- How would you put into words
what “innermost being” means to you?
- Think of times… think of
stories… when you have expressed these inner qualities. What has this been
like for you?
- Take the VIA (“Values in
Action”) survey that is linked to the website above. You have to register,
but it’s free. How do the results about your signature strengths of
character expand your understanding of your “innermost being?”
Author
Joseph
Campbell (1904–1987)
was an American academic and writer best known for his seminal work on the
origins, nature, and functions of myth. He began his college studies at
Dartmouth, transferring to Columbia, where he received bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in literature. Not seeing eye-to-eye with Columbia faculty about
doctoral studies, he embarked on a life-long program of intensive self-study
through reading, world-wide travel, and collaboration with a host of 20th
century luminaries, including John Steinbeck, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and, more
recently, George Lucas and Bill Moyers. Campbells’ principal teaching
engagement was a 38-year tenure at Sarah Lawrence College. The quotation is
from an interview with Bill Moyers that was part of a PBS series, The Power of Myth, which was aired after
Campbell’s’ death and subsequently published in book form.
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