Third Thesis: Meaning is found within—purpose is found without.
To most people, the question of whether or not their lives have meaning and purpose are basically the same question. In reality, however, they are two very different questions with very different answers. Not recognizing this critical distinction can lead to many wrong choices and negative consequences in life. What is the difference? The bottom line is that only you can give meaning to your life, but your life can only have purpose in relation to your place in the greater web of life, in what you do for all of the other lives on this planet, what you do for Life itself. Meaning comes from the values and beliefs that you imbue all of your experiences with. It is an internal process. Purpose comes from you fulfilling your place in the overall scheme of things, finding out what you were put on this Earth to do to move the web of life forward, and then doing it. It is an external process. One process can and should inform the other, but they are not the same.
When people look to externals (career, wealth, fame, popularity, etc.) to give their life meaning, that’s when they start making bad decisions and will ultimately not find the meaning they seek. A sense of meaning comes from knowing who you are, what you believe in, and how you should live in this world. This kind of meaning will only come after much introspection, spiritual seeking, and having experienced the world to a great enough degree that you can then decide what gives your life meaning, why you get up in the morning and why you do what you do. Who can really be happy and live a meaningful life when the criteria for doing so is that they have X amount of money, or achieve a certain amount of fame (or notoriety), or have certain kinds and numbers of friends? The answer is no one. All of these things are not within the power of an individual to fully control. You do not need to depend on anything external to you for your life to have some kind of meaning, for it to make some kind of sense to you and be worth living.
Another way to look at this distinction is to realize your life can have meaning, but no purpose. If, through some sort of post-apocalyptic happenings, you were the last person left on Earth, your life could still have meaning, however you chose to define it, but your capacity to have a greater purpose would be greatly reduced. On the other hand, if you life does indeed have a purpose, and you know what it is and are fulfilling it, that can give your life enormous meaning. That interplay was what I was referring to by saying that one process can and should inform the other.
We all have to seek both meaning and purpose in our lives, and indeed, it is our highest calling to do so. We need to seek them together. We need to find the meaning in our life that we can achieve by finding our purpose and living up to it. Doing so will give our life the highest level of meaning that it can have. If we are not working toward the Greater Good, if we are not advancing Life down the road just a little bit, that purpose cannot be found and the meaning our life has will be paltry and small. Knowing the difference between meaning and purpose is the first step to finding both.
I like this line of thinking! I would call purpose "calling" instead, because I agree people can become wrapped up in thinking that their purpose is just to do what others do or have what others have at a base level, but a calling seems much more intimate, springing from one's meaning. Thanks for writing this!
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