Facing life without a sense of meaning

I’ve been meaning to post this since posting “Mom’s Funeral ~ Part 2” on the 12 December 2021.  If you didn’t read that one, you might want to go over it before reading this one.

At the back of the book that my mother had written in, which my son found when searching in a box of old papers for something he needed, is written, in my mother’s handwriting (photo above): 

Why? 

Please tell me, Lord, the answer to the question why
You put me on this earth, to live a little day, and then to die?
I was born into this world-the fruit of Love and Pain
And have lived in suffering and will, till ‘tis time to leave again.
Alone I came.  Alone I walked through life. Alone I will go.
And yet the purpose of it all I do not know.

~ Judith Petrou

On reading this, I understood… this says it all.  My heart ached for my mother in reading these words she wrote.  I have had so many questions since.  

• Did she discover something really meaningful for her life once she had moved to England many years ago?  She had left this book with me and photos and other stuff packed in a box when she left and she never came back for them.  
• I wonder, did she go to church regularly?  Did she have lovely friends there or elsewhere, that helped to give meaning to her life?
• Did she ever discover the true meaning and purpose of her life?
• Did she ever succeed in stopping smoking cigarettes?  I know she tried a few times and wanted to, but just couldn’t get that right.
• Did she have a little dog for company?
• Did she still leave beautiful flower gardens wherever she could?  
• Did she still hurt and destroy people and lie with well-orchestrated stories like she so often did throughout the part of her life that I knew her, up until when she left South Africa?
(I wish I could remember when she left… it was a long time ago).
• Did she live in one place, or did she still move so often? (such a restless soul that never seemed to be able to find peace anywhere)

Anyway, I’m so happy she moved to England in the end… I am told, that she had a lot of people attend her funeral, so, I want to be left with the feeling of her having been loved and cared for in her last days on earth.  For so many years, I wondered if she was all alone, or loved and cared for.  I want to believe the latter, because it helps to give closure to all those years of wondering and worrying for her.

I hope, that by the time she died, this poem she had once written, no longer applied. 

To end off, I’d like to share some Logotherapy quotes on the subject of meaning and purpose.  I hope that sharing these will help others who also might feel that they are living an empty life without any real sense of meaning and purpose: To find out more, and/or, to sign up for a life-changing Logotherapy study journey, please go to www.vfisa.co.za

“Logotherapy is an unwaveringly realistic and positive orientation toward life and toward personal and collective human destiny. According to Dr Viktor Frankl, no moment in life is devoid of meaning. The innate will to meaning eternally calls man to aspire toward the highest conscious values in every given circumstance. Logotherapy is a celebration of the divine spirit of man. Logotherapy is an affirmation of the transcendent as the call to authenticity resounding deep within human conscience.” ~ Haya Baker Winiarz

“Logotherapy is based on the premise that life has meaning under all circumstances.  With this life orientation, logotherapy directs our fundamental will to find meaning in life towards realising the unique values embedded not only in the opportunities, joys and challenges of life, but also in the pain and suffering.” (Shantall, 2003, p.3) ~ The Quest for Destiny 

“Logotherapy... focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such meaning.” (Frankl, 2008, p. 104) ~ Man’s Search for Meaning 

“... the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.  What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” (Frankl, 2008, p.113) ~ Man’s Search for Meaning
 
“One should not search for an abstract meaning of life.  Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.  Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.  Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” (Frankl, 2008, p.113) ~ Man’s Search for Meaning

“As each situation in life presents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. 
  Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognise that it is he who is asked.  In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.  Thus Logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence.” (Frankl, 2008, p.p. 113-114) ~ Man’s Search for Meaning

“Frankl (1970, p.50) contended that existence would falter unless there is “a strong idea” or a strong ideal or important values in life to hold on to.  Frankl referred here to Freud (1927, p. 113) who stated: “Men are strong as long as they stand for a strong idea.”  We need to feel that there is a goal to strive towards, or that there is something to live for, that life has a purpose.  We experience life as meaningful when we feel that we have a vocation in life, or a mission in life to fulfil.” (Shantall, 2002, p. 18) ~ Life’s Meaning in the Face of Suffering

There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." (Frankl, 2008, p. 109) ~ Man’s Search for Meaning

“Frankl (1967) contended that it is indispensable to mental well-being to experience the tension between how things are at the moment and what they could or should or promise to be like; to experience the tension between being and meaning, that is, “meanings to fulfil or values to realize.”” (Shantall, 2002, p. 19) ~ Life’s Meaning in the Face of Suffering

“Frankl maintains that, as human beings, we all have a will to meaning.  We all want something worthwhile and purposeful to live and work for; we all want to feel needed, called upon to carry responsibility for something or someone.  By exercising the unique responsibilities that life has entrusted to us, we feel a sense of moral integrity.  Our lives are serving a unique purpose.  We have a destined role to play and, in our own way, we are irreplaceable.  These are the things that endue our life with meaning and that we, deeply within ourselves, want to experience.” (Shantall, 2003, p. 37) ~ The Quest for Destiny 

“Frankl contends that our will to meaning is the distinguishing feature of our humanness and that it is deeper and more powerful than any other kind of motivation.  ‘It is a characteristic constituent of human existence that it transcends itself, that it reaches out for something other than itself’
(Frankl 1969:51)” (Shantall, 2003, p. 37) ~ The Quest for Destiny

“The basic tenet of logotherapy is that, as human beings, we have a will to meaning.  Having the capacity to think, to weigh up our lives, choose what we want to do with them and why, we are operating in a dimension not shared with any other earthly creature.  In reaching out beyond ourselves or a mere day-to-day existence we are transcending the levels of animalistic existence and enter into a uniquely human dimension.” (Shantall, 2003, p. 5) ~ The Quest for Destiny 

“Like iron filings in a magnetic field, man’s life is put in order through his orientation toward meaning.  Thereby a field of tension is established between what man is and what he ought to do.  In this field existential dynamics is operating.  By this dynamics man is pulled rather than pushed” (Frankl, 1968, p. 21) ~ Psychotherapy and Existentialism

“The deepest quest in all of our lives is for meaning.  To simply exist is not enough.  The struggle to live well is not enough either.  The quest for meaning is only satisfied and can only become an exhilarating force in our lives when we feel that our lives were destined to be.  We are here for a purpose.  We have an unique role to play.  We have an uniquely appointed place in life, one that cannot be filled by anybody else.  We are irreplaceable.  Only this conviction can remove feelings of unworthiness, envy, anger and despair.  We are not excluded but included in the deepest possible way.  Life needs us.” (Shantall, 2003, p. ix) ~ The Quest for Destiny 

“Something meaningful draws us out of ourselves – it enlarges our vision, enriches us and causes us to grow: to become bigger and better than we are.  Frankl quoted Goethe as saying: “If we take a man as he is, we make him worse; if we take him as he ought to be, we help him become it” (Shantall, 2002, p. 19) ~ Life’s Meaning in the Face of Suffering

“Frankl says: Despair is suffering without meaning.  If one could see a meaning in one’s suffering, there is no despair!” (Havenga Coetzer, 2003, p. 33) ~ Viktor Frankl’s Avenues to Meaning
 
“Our pain and sufferings are meant to awaken our spiritual aspirations.  Life is always asking us, “What are we meant to discover in any particular situation?”” ~ Henry Mason
 
Thank you for sharing with me.
 
~ Panayiota