… Wait for it…

[ornoth]

I recently read Rachel Naomi Remen’s book “Kitchen Table Wisdom”, wherein the author relates the story of how she went from her purely intellectual orientation as a physician to a more spiritual place, as well as the stories of other people she came into contact with that inspired her.

Overall, the book didn’t really blow me away, but there was one story about the author’s childhood that struck a resonant chord, so I thought I’d record that here, since I think it directly addresses the anxiety that people feel about not knowing the “meaning” of their lives.

The author relates that her family always put together jigsaw puzzles without the aid of the picture on the box, in order to make it more of a challenge and a surprise. As a young girl, she was just learning what jigsaw puzzles were. She was attracted to the colorful pieces, but she intuitively disliked the darker ones, so she took the latter away and hid them, to the consternation of her parents.

As an adult, the author used this as a metaphor for how life’s meaning reveals itself to us. I’d like to share and extend that metaphor a bit.

Our lives are indeed like a jigsaw puzzle whose final image isn’t known until we place the final pieces. Each day we place another piece, but progress is slow and the picture only makes sense as it nears completion.

If you focus solely on what today is like, all you see is one minuscule piece of your life. Today’s piece of the puzzle might be light or dark, colorful or muted, busy or empty, but you really can’t infer anything about your life overall from this one little piece. And even if today is a dark or painful part, you can’t assemble a great picture without the contrast of light and dark pieces, just as you can’t go through life with only mindlessly saccharine-sweet days. You can’t complete a jigsaw puzzle or a meaningful life if you ignore, avoid, or deny the existence of its dark parts.

Our past is the part of the puzzle we have completed. We can step back and look at what our life has been like so far, what kind of image it makes and what meaning it holds. By looking at the past, we can begin to make some sense of our life, or at least our life so far. If you look at the past, you can start to see meaning, but things could—and will—change substantially from here forward.

The future is, of course, unknown. We know the shape and color of the past, but we only have limited knowledge about what our next piece of the puzzle might look like. It could be a carbon copy of today’s, or it might introduce a completely new theme, like the first appearance in a puzzle of a person or the edge of a building. Our lives might have been all ocean as far as we have seen, but the next piece could be the point where the sea meets a beach or a rocky coastline, or it could be the first part of a gorgeous sunset on a distant horizon.

One of the great lessons here is that looking for the “meaning” of your life is futile. Meaning isn’t something that you are handed; it’s not a mandate from family, church, or job. Meaning isn’t an input, but an output; you create that meaning with every decision you make and every action you take. Meaning is the result of living, and thus can only be seen retrospectively.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have principles that guide our actions. Just remember that the principles aren’t what gives your life meaning; meaning derives solely from the actions that those principles have promoted. Your principles die with you, and are only made visible to the world through your actions.

While at the same time, each and every action you take contributes to that meaning. Whether you live according to your highest ethics or just spend your time on autopilot, every day you contribute the exact same amount toward the ultimate meaning of your life. So if the meaning of your life matters to you, it’s imperative that you live each day according to the values you cherish most.

This is what I have learned: it takes great presence of mind and strength of will to live according to one’s highest values, and no one is perfect. We make mistakes. None of us are Mother Theresa, but over time we can gradually learn to see our autonomic behavior and then replace our mindless habits with better choices. That’s why Buddhism calls it “practice” and a lifelong path.