The Meaning of Life with Dr. Bob

The meaning of life has nothing necessarily to do with having amounted to something or made some great contribution.

But here we are in the realm of “Do.” Many people think that the meaning of life is to have amounted to something. Or made a donation, a lasting contribution to humanity. These are certainly important accomplishments. I repeat myself –  there’s nothing wrong with “doing.” But doing reflects upon the doer. Doing reflects back into the doer. In other words, whatever you’re doing, reflects back into you. People often say when they are doing good works, it makes them feel so good. That’s true and that’s real. But it’s also true and real than doing without a source of being eventually becomes sycophantic and unsupportable.

Here is a red barn. It looks good from the outside. Looks like it is serving its purpose. However, the owners of the barn no longer use it for anything. It still stands as a barn but its insides are neglected. A rafter has becomes ineffective. A cross-member becomes dry-rotted. One day, “out of the blue,” the building collapses. The barn is no longer a barn; just a heap of rubble. The barn was overlooked for so long that it accordioned from the inside out. The reason it could “do,” remaining a building where animals and crops might be sheltered, collapsed due to neglect of its crucial construction.

It is our essential construction that gives us the meaning of life. Great if we can make a contribution or amount to something in this life. But if our insides are weak, we may look good to the outside world, but we know we are falling apart inside. “Good works (alone) avail a man nothing.” The “to be” part needs to be in place first and foremost in a person’s life.

It is out of being that doing stirs.

It is out of the abundance of the self that making something of oneself comes. It is out of the abundance of the self that making a difference in the world comes. It is out of the abundance of the self that making a lasting contribution to humankind comes. Without a rich and full “being,” doing has no backing. It has no container out of which may pour the energy, imagination and effort of doing.  This is the meaning of life, “to be happy.”

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