Assumptions

Every once in a while, I need to reevaluate my assumptions and the foundation for my conclusions about how to lead a more meaningful life.

Assumption 1: There is no absolute purpose given to us by a higher power. Our lives aren't so simple as doing what someone wiser than us has told us to do. The corollary to this is that there is no immortal afterlife, and as time increases to infinity any possible effect our mortal lives have had on the world and its people will drop to zero.

Assumption 2: As long as life can possibly be more enjoyable than non-existence, it is worth staying alive. With regard to the lack of imbued purpose discussed in assumption 1, there is no concrete obligation to serve anyone, since everyone and everything outside yourself will meet the same end eventually (whether or not you WANT to serve other people is a different matter entirely). As a result, finding happiness for oneself, since there would be no real value in living an unfulfilled life purely for the sake of others, would seem to be the best use of an otherwise meaningless life. In my experience, the most rewarding and enjoyable feeling comes from a sense of purpose and belonging, a notion that one is where they are most happy being and doing what they are most happy doing. (Before I'm accused of being totally self-centered, it's easy to imagine one can be most happy and fulfilled in the service of others). By that token, the best use of one's life is to find that place and do that thing.

But of course, it's not that easy. How can you know what else you could be doing?

Assumption 3: Everyone has a unique potential. What is fulfilling to one person might not be fulfilling to another, but no one is obligated to fulfill the potential of another, only their own. If a person feels like they've found a particular place and occupation that gives them the greatest sense of fulfillment and happiness, they have made the best use of their life, despite the judgments of others regarding what that person has chosen to spend their life doing. Happy plumber > unfulfilled investment banker who's only in it for the money.

Maybe even more important than finding a place and an occupation is cultivating a way of looking at the world that looks at every moment in life is a step toward that fulfillment, a worldview that asserts that life is fundamentally, necessarily good.

In this moment, I feel like an artist sitting before a pottery wheel, hands caked with the physical substance of my experience, mind and pencil sketching and resketching the ambitious designs for my life, which sits in a misshapen lump that hints at my previous unskilled and heavy-handed attempts at craftsmanship.