As you investigate the question of meaning in your life story, you’ll see how you make sense of the life you’ve been given. If logic is your primary method, you will tend toward a rational approach. If you’re guided by intuition and focus on signals from within, you’re more likely to be drawn to mythic and archetypal approaches.
Central to our sense of meaning is the theme of having a home. More than a mere structure, this is where we find our place in the world. In this chapter, we’ll look at why home is a state of mind that brings feelings of belonging and worthiness. We’ll also examine the importance of choice in building meaning because what you choose determines how you shape your purpose. With a purpose, you can decide what really matters and what does not. You can see that certain choices lead toward the truth while others lead toward impostorhood. Although meaning is itself a story, you have the power to use this narrative to elevate the quality of your life.
Humans are a sense-making species. As we move through the world, our brains paint pictures of what we see. From the raw materials of our lives, we connect dots, construct frames, and create perspectives. At every moment, awake and asleep, our psyches are engaged in this sense-making process, telling stories about events and feelings and placing ourselves in these narratives. We use criteria like mental molds, prejudices, expectations, and logic to create sense in our lives.
The ancient Greeks said that Zeus endowed humans with two primary faculties: the longing for fairness and justice, and the capacity for reverence and awe. These faculties correspond to two different ways of viewing ourselves and the world, which are called “logos” and “mythos.” Logos refers to our ordinary way of seeing the world with deductive, logical thinking that helps us balance our checkbook, make decisions, and plan for the future. But as scholar Karen Armstrong describes, the ancients saw that logos cannot “assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology.”
Mythos can move the heart to love, inspire faith, and find magic in the metaphorical mystery of life. Mythic thinking allows us to ponder life’s deepest questions through a larger aperture, to reinterpret our struggles against an eternal backdrop. Mythos is concerned more with feeling than thought, motivated more by faith than reason. The mythic mind ponders metaphysical questions while the logical mind counts the beans and weighs the odds. While most of us tend toward one approach or the other, both mythos and logos are necessary for a balanced life. Unfortunately, in our reason-obsessed, left-brained culture, we favor logic over myth, facts over fables, and black-and-white explanations over the rainbow spectrum of awe. This leads to an impoverished view of existence: sensible without being wise, logical without being enriching.
Logos without mythos can lead to confusion. If you tend toward rationality, and find your deepest comfort in hard facts and precise thinking, you may be someone who looks to security as the hallmark of a meaningful life. If you tend toward mythic thinking, you may find logic too dry and tidy, and prefer symbolism, archetypes, and intuition. You may depend on spiritual resonance as a source of meaning. Knowing whether you are pulled toward either mythos or logos can help you understand how you make sense of your life, and how you can balance your perspective. For example, Seth sat down to write about a crossroads in his life. He was burned out on a job that paid well but felt meaningless. So he gave his logos mind the first shot and wrote to explore those values.
The odds of finding a different job that pays this much are extremely low. There are great benefits, it’s close to my home, and since I’m in my mid-thirties and want to have kids, I should be practical. Every job brings its aggravations. Besides, if I stay for another five years there will be profit-sharing. And the organization itself does great work in the world even though my job is dull.
Logos mind appraises what is known and arrives at reasonable conclusions. Its approach is deductive; from known facts and hypotheses, it draws a logical response, remaining objective and surface-oriented. It makes sense but it doesn’t find inspiration. Now look at what Seth’s mythos mind made of the same situation.
I feel like I’ve come to a fork in the road, spiritually. It relates with personal power: I’ve played the apprentice, the mentee, the functionary, but haven’t bloomed creatively. My soul feels cramped and I can’t move on to my next growth phase without taking a risk. Unless I can trust that I will find my way if I stay true to my inner calling, I can’t come into true feelings of abundance.
Most of us oscillate between these two kinds of storytelling. Both versions may be said to be true yet appeal to separate parts of our psyche. Depending on our temperament, we balance these complementary perspectives in a manner that suits our preferred style. Ideally, when making important choices in life we see through both portals. Including both a rational and metaphorical approach in writing and self-inquiry widens your aperture and maximizes choice. It also creates wisdom; knowing that both ways of seeing are valuable and true gives us a greater view than a singular approach. These prompts will move you toward a more balanced perspective in how you understand your own story.
At every moment, our psyches are engaged in telling stories about events and feelings, and placing ourselves in these narratives.
The ancient Greeks had two ways of viewing ourselves and the world. Logos refers to deductive, logical thinking, and mythos ponders metaphysical questions.
Our left-brained culture favors logic over myth and black-and-white explanations over the rainbow spectrum of awe—which leads to an impoverished view of existence.
Knowing whether we are pulled toward either mythos or logos can help us understand how we make sense of our life and see where we need to balance our perspective.
When you write about how you make sense of your life, and discover where you may have an imbalance between right- and left-brained ways of seeing, you develop deeper access to wisdom and meaning. These are important tools for locating yourself in the world, for finding out where you feel at home and are certain you belong.
The quest for meaning includes finding your home in the world. This home may not be geographical. A friend of mine devotes her life to Doctors Without Borders. Though she’s fond of her suburban house in New Jersey, her deepest sense of home comes from being where the greatest need exists. When treating refugees in foreign countries, my friend feels she belongs. Being a doctor locates her in the world—for this generous, compassionate woman, home is an emotional state more than a swimming pool and circular driveway.
A few years back, I traveled around the United States doing research for an article about the epidemic of homelessness in our country. When I spoke to homeless individuals, I began to grasp the spiritual meaning of home and its impact on everyday human life, regardless of whether or not we have a permanent address. Homelessness is a state of mind many of us have experienced in times of transition and struggle, during intervals of heartache, confusion, and disappointment. Though we may have a roof over our head, we nonetheless feel homeless, dislocated, and abandoned. In such times, we discover that home has an existential importance that relates to our deepest insecurities about living on this mysterious planet in the first place. Through this spiritual lens, home is where you find your heart as much as where you hang your hat. It is connected to the idea of sanctuary, as we discussed in the lesson on finding an inner refuge. In Buddhist teachings, spiritual initiation is known as “taking refuge” and is related to this sense of home and sanctuary. As something we create for ourselves, we can feel more at home with a group of like-minded strangers than we do with biological family.
Catherine lived like a cat on a hot tin roof. Wherever she landed, Catherine would leave as fast as she could pack her suitcase. For twenty years, she traveled incessantly, looking for a place where she felt she belonged. But this perfect place eluded her because no matter where she was, Catherine invented a reason why it could never be her home. When she joined my course, she was exhausted and filled with rationales about why no place would satisfy her. I asked Catherine to write about a destination that might give her joy. What sort of home might feel right for reasons she couldn’t make logical sense of? Where did she feel her spirit belonged? Which place would be best for developing her gifts? Here is what Catherine wrote.
I’ve always felt called to live on a ranch. That’s crazy since I’m single without a lot of expendable income. But when I close my eyes and see myself somewhere, it’s always outdoors on a kind of plateau that’s surrounded by mountains and full of animals. Horses, goats, pigs, the lot. When I think about that, my heart sings. It feels like I could find something there that I’ve wanted but never found. A missing piece. But where would that be?
Catherine had opened a surprising new door. In order to move through it, she would need to look at home from the inside-out—rather than binge-shop external locations—and become aware of yearnings and images she’d long suppressed for the sake of practicality. As the class continued, I encouraged Catherine to flesh out her vision by exploring the feelings each element of her pastoral scene brought up: the animals, mountains, solitude, Western flavor, and outdoorsy lifestyle. What did each of these elements say about who she was and where she belonged? In the end, her love of animals let her know it didn’t really matter where she was, as long as she could have assorted pets. Catherine joked, “How can I make a major life choice based on moving somewhere I can have a goat?” I responded by asking her, “How could you not?” By the time the class ended, Catherine had decided to put down stakes in Arizona, where she became the caretaker of an estate where the owner allowed her to have as many animals as she wanted.
Where do you feel at home and why? What are the elements of home that matter to you? And how does home connect to your sense of purpose? These deepening practices will help you find out.
The quest for meaning always includes finding your home in the world.
Homelessness is a state of mind that many of us have experienced in times of transition and struggle.
Home is more than architecture. It is our source of balance, the central pivot point that connects us to the earth as we go about our life.
Home is connected to the idea of sanctuary and is where we find our heart as much as where we hang our hat.
By looking at your relationship to home, you touch on issues of safety, belonging, family, isolation, and self-worth. These can be tender feelings, so go slowly through these questions and pay attention to emotional and physical changes along the way.
Until you understand what home means to you, it’s hard to know what to make of your life, or which direction to take. Without such an orientation, choice-making can feel like a game of chance. Having a sense of where you belong helps you decide what matters and what doesn’t. By learning to choose mindfully, attending to both mythos and logos, you cultivate a more meaningful life.
We may or may not be able to choose our home, but we can decide what home means to us. Through choice, we affirm what matters to us and what doesn’t. Choice not only determines meaning, it also creates the conditions for change. Whatever our life circumstances, we have the power to affect them through the choices we make. This holds true in both everyday matters and life-and-death situations.
Consider the story of psychologist Viktor Frankl, author of the classic book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was taken to a concentration camp during World War II, and as he struggled to keep body and soul intact, he made a startling discovery about the power of choice. This is how he described it.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Frankl realized that choice and meaning are integral to self-awareness—regardless of our surroundings. Whether we find we’re in difficult straits or in the lap of privilege, this is a universal truth. The ability to imbue our life with beauty and meaning is an inside job. In a universe we cannot control, it is still possible to choose our own attitude and the quality of our inner life. This recognition is transformational. No longer the victim of circumstance, we take back power over how we respond, and learn to make more awakened choices.
To grasp this life-changing truth, we must first acknowledge that choice and control have little to do with each other. Choice centers on how you respond to conditions. Control is focused on changing conditions. While control tends to be outward-directed, choice is always an internal shift. When driving a car across difficult terrain, a control-orientation will be concerned with fixing the road, painting dividing lines, and installing traffic lights. A choice-orientation will focus on improving driving skills, adjusting speed, and being mindful of the right direction. Control is forever limited, and often frustrated, by external factors. Choice is limitless, flexible, and creative, regardless of the road conditions.
Discovering the power of choice through writing can turn adverse situations into opportunities. You recapture energy sacrificed to the victim’s story. As long as you choose your own attitude, you cannot be a victim. By taking possession of your own choices, your sense of meaning deepens. This liberating insight can save your life. Use these prompts to look at the power of choice and your skills as choicemaker.
The connection between personal choice and a meaningful life is important to understand. Our choices define what matters to us and create conditions for change.
Choice and meaning are integral to self-awareness. We can imbue our life with meaning by choosing our own attitude and the quality of our inner life.
Choice and control have little to do with each other. Choice centers on how you respond to conditions. Control is focused on changing conditions.
Discovering the power of choice through writing can turn adverse situations into opportunities.
This is a transformational process. Your experience is changed by what you choose. These questions will help clarify how you make your life choices.
When you see diverse options, and how free you are to choose differently, it opens your mind and eases your heart. Writing with the intention to make that happen is a liberating process. The story of who you are can change, guiding you toward what really matters.
As we write about experience, we are coloring it with value, honing it with bias, and shaping it to suit our tastes and needs. We are choosing what matters and what doesn’t, what counts and what doesn’t deserve our attention. That is why meaning itself is a changing story, which does not detract from its value. Story is worth a lot—as long as we know that it’s a story. We use our stories to navigate existence as we use our body to maneuver through the world. Like clothing, our shifting narratives help us survive in different environments and conditions.
It’s important to realize that meaning is a changing story; what matters is what we say matters, which is constantly in flux. What meant a lot to you yesterday may be history today, while formerly meaningless parts of life can suddenly become urgent. This evolution of significance, and what matters, depends on telling the truth. I worked with a student named Flint who was going through a depression. In his first piece of writing, Flint wrote, “I feel like the juice is drained out of me. Nothing feels like it really matters. It’s like the pilot light has gone out and there’s no heat left. I just don’t care about anything. I’m thinking of getting on medication.”
Flint had written about his symptoms without touching on the cause behind them. I asked him what was going on his life. Had anything changed that affected his morale? Flint replied:
My wife and I stopped having sex because I was so miserable. She blames me for everything. There’s no message like, “Honey are you okay?” She’s just mad all the time. And the madder she gets, the more I avoid her. It’s a vicious circle. When wasn’t it?
When wasn’t it? I asked Flint to write about that sentence. That’s when the dam broke inside him.
I have a hard time saying this, but I hate my wife. I really hate her. She’s not a nice person. The thought of living with her for the rest of my life makes me want to kill myself. I’ve never said that out loud. But I’d rather not be here than be with her for the next twenty years.
By telling the truth, Flint realized that he was angry, not depressed. As he explored his rage in writing, the blanket of sadness that had covered him in meaninglessness began to burn off. Years of withheld emotions, resentments, and outrage poured out of Flint, until he saw that he needed to leave the marriage. Foregoing the Prozac, he got a divorce. Because he’d revealed his untold story, Flint’s life began to matter again.
Positive psychology tells us that happiness is inseparable from a sense of purpose. To find what really matters to you, look at what makes you truly happy, deeply satisfied, creatively engaged, and useful-feeling in the world. Happiness levels rise higher when we are engaged in activities that connect us to a sense of greater good and causes that are larger than ourselves. The things that matter in our life are energy boosters and provide fuel to carry us through moments of doubt and uncertainty.
After Flint left his wife, he was able to choose—honestly and mindfully—what he wanted to do next. What would give his life meaning? How could he use what he knew as a bridge for connecting to others? In the end, Flint decided to enroll in chef school because he liked to feed people. “That’s what gives me joy. Bringing a little comfort to people’s lives. I know it’s just food, but it’s love to me.” Flint’s customers surely agree.
When you find yourself wondering what really matters, take a look at the world around you. Where can your strengths and gifts contribute to something the world needs? How can who you are, what you know, and the things you care about help to improve the lives of others? Explore these themes as you respond to these prompts.
Meaning is a story we use to navigate our existence, which helps us in different environments and conditions. We find out what matters to us by telling the truth.
Positive psychology tells us that happiness is inseparable from a sense of purpose.
Happiness levels rise higher when we are engaged in activities that connect us to a sense of greater good.
The things that matter in our lives are energy boosters and provide fuel to carry us through moments of doubt and uncertainty.
Once you know that meaning is a story that is always changing, you can ask fresh questions, tell the truth, and be flexible about what matters and what doesn’t. The realization that happiness comes from connecting to something larger than yourself can help guide your choices. To find this meeting point, allow yourself to be directed by intuition. Writing will help you get there, guided by the heart’s pull toward wisdom, transformation, and love.