That’s Meant to Be

Read Time: 4 minutes

Happening

I don’t believe in a life that is “meant” to be. If you are reading this post hoping I would reveal a secret about life, I’m not going to. I haven’t intentionally misled you. I do have something to say about meaning. I just don’t believe anything meaningful in life is fated. Why? Fate implies that how your life goes and how it ends up was the only way it could go. Good hand or bad hand, it’s all you have. 

Ironically, this idea of fate is true. What happens in life is the only way that it goes. Can’t change the past. Can’t predict the future. The problem with fate is believing in it means that it determines our lives without us. When we live thinking life is predetermined, we don’t live it for the meaning it brings with it. We risk living life waiting for the meaning to appear.

Even though death is a sure thing, for me, living a great life comes with the understanding that its greatness is baked in. That sounds like fate, but it isn’t. Life doesn’t find meaning. It is the meaning. The best life is one lived in the greatness of life itself. Ironically, because I’ll die, my best life is free to be.

I won’t get to experience a great life if I spend it searching for meaning. I can’t live in the present moment in all its wonder if I don’t believe that the meaning is within me and all around me. I’ll miss the greatness if I believe it has already happened. Life will feel like I lived it but had nothing to do with it. I find greatness in life by knowing it’s happening now. Even when it’s awful.

What happens to me is just that. Whatever it is. What I make happen is also just that. Life is how I make it. I sound like I’m talking in circles. Maybe it’s circular, or maybe it’s just simple. A life spent waiting for people, places, ideas, and all the “good” stuff to make its way to me is a life happening to me. It’s not a life that happens. I want a life that is happening. Not one that is meant for me, but a life that I mean to live.

Meaningful

The Stoic philosophers had a really good take on meaning. They said they didn’t want to live life looking for meaning. Instead, they lived to have a meaningful life. There is a difference. Live first for the meaning life comes with and then live for that same meaning. Living life hoping and looking for meaning misses the meaning itself. That we are here. That we can be together. That we can experience the world. That we can learn and discover. Adopting meaning or faking meaning doesn’t tap into the inherent ways my life has meaning simply because it is my life.

My approach to meaning in life is why I’m good with the experiences I have had, am having, and want to have. They are life’s meaning. They are what I get because I can move and feel and connect. Even if they are challenging to get to or bring challenges, my life’s experiences are also my life’s opportunities. 

I get so many opportunities to experience living life in a different way or doubling down on the way I already know is awesome. With people or with myself, the world is connected. The exact meaning of that connection is irrelevant to being able to experience it. Experiencing life means everything.

It’s all happening now. Regardless of time or space, life is. With time and space, life is even more beautiful. It’s beautiful through its movement, flow, and lurches. Life is beautifully terrible in the way it makes us look deeper, forces us to live better, shows us fragility, and screams us into awareness. Its meaning is my meaning. It’s your meaning. Its energy is inherently meaningful.

Once I embraced life as meaning, I knew what I wanted. My life. So simple. I’ve freed myself from what I thought was complicated about life. I’ve let go of the belief that life was happening to me without my input. I see now that my life is the meaning. Now, it’s all mine to share even if I don’t know what will happen. Even if I have to live with what has already happened. It’s all part of the meaning.

I mean it. Do you?