A common mistake is to look for the (only) meaning in our work. But confusing our work with the meaning of our lives makes us unhappy. Even if we may appear so successful to the outside world.
This is exactly why so many people at the top in their field struggle with depression. They have achieved the ultimate goal, yet they don’t find all the satisfaction they expected. On the contrary.
It also happens in the quest for more of the time-honoured trappings: money, power and more impulsively: sex.
Time and time again, we fall into the delusion that that will give us ultimate satisfaction. But it is never enough.
And it is a destructive illusion because along the way of the quest, we make gigantic sacrifices.
We always want to be millionaires. Then we become it, after a lot of dedication and a life totally out of balance. But it does not at all bring us the deep satisfaction and peace we were looking for.
So we aim for more again. Or something else. That one gadget, that pair of shoes, that one car, that one house, that one partner….
Keep looking, keep hunting.
From an empty feeling. Again and again, the same thing will happen. In every field.
Our standard, above which we think we will only find ultimate and lasting satisfaction, slides along and we search for what will never be there. The bad thing is that in that search, we make irreversible sacrifices that we regret immensely.
Because we are looking for a temporary patch on a much deeper wound. The patch does stop the bleeding for a while, the symptoms on the surface, but not the underlying cause: the disease at the germ that causes us more and more harm.
Continuing to apply these superficial patch-ups, is not the solution. We will always remain dissatisfied.
Always searching, always needy, always poor.
When we are little more than our title at work and our lives do not involve much more than our work, it is a guarantee of trouble.
Our role in work is only part of its meaning, but not its fulfillment. After all, what happens when work unexpectedly falls away, or when we retire?
We have found a meaning and can then fill it in countless ways. Work is one of them.
But also being a friend, a daughter, a brother, a neighbour, a volunteer, a carer for an animal.
There are countless roles we can fill in through which meaning can become a reality for us.
It is up to us to be determined in carrying it out and creative in finding ways to live it.
When we recognize what our meaning is to us, and also what it is not in, we can filter.
But just as important: overseeing the bigger picture, looking beyond the achievement of intermediate successes. These are only intermediate stops; goals to hold on to, but certainly not final stations. So then it doesn’t stop there either and we don’t dive into the black hole hidden behind it.
No, we fly over it, on our way to our next success, our next station, in the sense of a much more encompassing journey; a dream journey called our life that encompasses a much bigger picture. In which the goals along the way, which are in constant flux, are secondary to it.
A sacrifice we make anyway in the search for meaning is our wasted time. Every second we have spent in emptiness and mental turmoil on things they were utterly unworthy of, does not come back.
To fool ourselves, we so often procrastinate in life. It’s tempting because it’s so nice and easy. “I’ll do that later”. “Someday I’ll have time for that”.
But ever becomes never.
In doing so, we are ignorant of how much time will be given to us.
The interim evaluation of Vita Florentis’ The Last Hour Experience can be confronting, because there is no more procrastination.
This was it.
The Last Hour Experience is your mirror and in it you will see – without hiding – whether life has had meaning so far. What the meaning was for you and how you lived by it.
Have you really done what matters to you?
Have you done what you really care about?
To ask yourself only on your deathbed whether life had meaning – if you had the chance to do so at all – is the worst possible moment, because at that point it is too late to change course.
That is why this interim evaluation is so valuable.
It shakes you up to make you realize whether or not you are living with passion; living for what really matters to you.
And of course the interpretation of this is different for everyone.
However, it universally starts with reflection and awareness and with The Last Hour Experience, we apply that in the most effective way for you.
“Only when all the daily distractions that surround you so often are gone, you can experience what is really important to you.
That is what really matters.”
Julian van der Wouden – Vita Florentis
