{"id":70,"date":"2013-11-18T02:07:14","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T02:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/becausethisisyourlife\/?p=70"},"modified":"2013-11-18T02:21:36","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T02:21:36","slug":"what-is-the-meaning-of-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2013\/11\/what-is-the-meaning-of-your-life.html","title":{"rendered":"What Is The Meaning Of Your Life?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">It&#8217;s something you do every day from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down and go to sleep&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And everywhere else in between.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Not only that but this is something that makes the difference between living a life of what seems like never ending struggle, uncertainty, and doubt&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Versus<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Having greater peace of mind, greater self confidence, and being able to enjoy your life more&#8212;now and a lot more in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">This is also something that you&#8217;ve heard about thousands of times&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But never spoken about in the true way of how it \u00a0can work to your advantage in any area of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Do you know what this is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Be aware that knowing what this is and how you can use it all starts by first asking yourself the question&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">&#8220;What is the meaning of my life?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\"><strong>1. Mission not passion-<\/strong> Knowing the meaning of your life starts by realizing if you&#8217;re following your passion versus living your mission. And the difference between the two is night and day. In fact, it&#8217;s also the difference as to whether you live the type of live you&#8217;d love to live or not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">How so?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Most people believe that following their passion is the key to achieving the type of life they&#8217;d love to live.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But guess what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The actual meaning of passion is the opposite of what it was originally intended to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Therefore it is unwise to follow your passion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">So you&#8217;re probably thinking, &#8220;what in the world is Chaney talking about?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Here&#8217;s the truth behind it all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The original meaning or etymology of passion means to suffer&#8230;ungoverned out of control suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Of course most people nowadays see passion as what we all have come to know it as. And this came about because somewhere along the line someone changed the definition of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But what hasn&#8217;t changed is this&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Following your passion is one sided.This involves seeking more pleasure than pain, more support than challenge, more success than failure, more positive than negative, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">This is what I like to call trying to live a &#8220;fantasy lifestyle.&#8221; This is unwise to do and is the source of most people&#8217;s suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The wisest way to live your life is to be mission driven.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">When you follow your mission you&#8217;ll embrace pleasure and pain, support and challenge, success and failure, positive and negative&#8230;equally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">You&#8217;ll know that no matter what situation you encounter that both sides exist equally. They exist for a purpose. And the more of one you have, the more of the other you&#8217;ll have as well. This is what I like to call living a &#8220;fulfillment driven lifestyle.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">What this leads to is living a fulfilled life rather than trying to live a happy life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">So just know that part of the meaning of your life is to be mission driven rather than passion driven.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And that the purpose of your life is not to be happy or successful, but rather to be fulfilled&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Because living a fulfilled life embraces the happy and sad, success and failure, both of which are necessary to live your mission and to do so in a healthy manner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\"><strong>2. Connecting the dots-<\/strong> Here&#8217;s something I used to do that you&#8217;re either doing now or have done at some point in your life&#8230;and that is thinking, &#8220;what if I had done this&#8221; or &#8220;what if I had done that&#8221; my life would be different, I&#8217;d be better off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Well guess what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">What you have done or not done in your life up to this point has served you in your life. Are you aware of that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Are you also aware that if the things you &#8220;wished had happened&#8221; or &#8220;not happened&#8221; that you may even be worse off than you are right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But here&#8217;s a pearl of wisdom that adds more meaning to your life&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">No matter what you&#8217;ve done or not done still has both the positive and negative attached to it. In either case those situations both served and dis-served you in some way. Therefore you&#8217;re no &#8220;better&#8221; or &#8220;worse&#8221; off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Take a look at the different moments in your life and start &#8220;connecting the dots&#8221; as I like to say. If the very thing you wanted to go your way did go your way, the outcome may not have been what you expected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">In fact there have been many movies, even though fictional, that show this. Back to the Future, Sliding Doors, and Running Against Time are a few that come to mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The point here is this&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Even though you can&#8217;t go back in time physically, you can perceptually. In other words you can always have those thoughts of &#8220;my life would have been different or better if &#8220;this&#8221; had gone my way.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But once you connect the dots and see that everything in your life up to this point has served you and your mission&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">You&#8217;ll have even more evidence as to the meaning of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\"><strong>3. Knowing me knowing you-<\/strong> During the course of our lives we have relationships with thousands of different people. Along with that comes the many different memories we have. And what also comes with it are the so called &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;bad&#8221; days.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">I use &#8220;so called&#8221; because in actuality each day is &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;bad.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Think about a time when you had a &#8220;good&#8221; day. Then all of a sudden you had someone you know on that day say that their day was &#8220;horrible.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Now look at it from the other end. Think of a time when you said you had a &#8220;bad&#8221; day. Then all of a sudden you had someone say they were having a &#8220;great&#8221; day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">In both cases each person is experiencing the &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;bad&#8221; of that day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Well the same is true of memories of all the people and situations you&#8217;ve come across in your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Here&#8217;s something else to keep in mind&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">The more you know other people, the more you get to know yourself.\u00a0And the more you get to know yourself, the more you get to know other people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">This adds a tremendous amount of meaning to your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">It gets you to see parts of yourself that you may not have been aware of. This is also why whenever you see someone as being mean and dishonest&#8212;that the only way you could see them that way is if you&#8217;ve seen yourself or others have seen you as also being mean and dishonest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And it works the other way too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">If you believe that someone is beautiful and a genius&#8211;that the only way you could see them as being beautiful and a genius is if you&#8217;ve seen yourself or others have seen you as being beautiful and a genius in some way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">So&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">&#8220;What is the meaning of your life?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Let&#8217;s now come back to what I mentioned earlier about something you do every day from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down and go to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And how this makes the difference between living\u00a0a life of what seems like never ending struggle, uncertainty, and doubt&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Versus<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Having greater peace of mind, greater self confidence, and being able to enjoy your life more&#8212;now and a lot more in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">In fact what this is, is contained in the word life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">You see LIFE stands for&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Love<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Is<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Forever<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Eternal<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">&#8230;and the word I&#8217;m referring to is Love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">But it&#8217;s not in the same way as you&#8217;ve heard mentioned thousands of times throughout your life&#8230;the romantic love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">Instead, love means that you&#8217;re surrounded by both sides of life 24 hours a day during your entire life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">This is why it&#8217;s with you from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down to go to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And when you become fully aware of this the meaning of your life suddenly changes and takes on a whole new meaning&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">A meaning that gets you to see how spectacular and amazing of a person you are.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">A meaning that gets you to realize the tremendous amount of value that you contribute to the world with your uniqueness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">And along with that being able to pass that meaning on to others so they can do the same in their lives as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';color: black\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s something you do every day from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down and go to sleep&#8230; And everywhere else in between. Not only that but this is something that makes the difference between living a life of what seems like never ending struggle, uncertainty, and doubt&#8230; Versus Having greater&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Is The Meaning Of Your Life? - Because This Is Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is The Meaning Of Your Life? - Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s something you do every day from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down and go to sleep&#8230; And everywhere else in between. Not only that but this is something that makes the difference between living a life of what seems like never ending struggle, uncertainty, and doubt&#8230; Versus Having greater&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2013\/11\/what-is-the-meaning-of-your-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-18T02:07:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-11-18T02:21:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cweiner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Is The Meaning Of Your Life? - Because This Is Your Life","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Is The Meaning Of Your Life? - Because This Is Your Life","og_description":"It&#8217;s something you do every day from the minute you get up until the moment you lay down and go to sleep&#8230; And everywhere else in between. 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