The meaning of life

"Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions."
- Peace Pilgrim 190? - 1981

The key word in this quote is "usefulness." Each object in your life, each feeling, each emotional attachment, each relationship should be one where a benefit exists.

This doesn't mean that you should stop being a caring parent because you aren't receiving benefits from your child. Your care means that the child is benefitting, which is what the responsibility of parenting is about.

As for objects, those who hold fast to things they don't need and that add no value to their lives are possessed by something material rather than being part of something spiritual. They are separate from life, rather than being part of the whole of life.

Such people may not be able to change that about themselves. They may have had the psychology of acquisitiveness so ingrained into them that they can't shake it in favour of something more meaningful.

They learned the lessons of buying, taught by industries, well, even if they believe they learned it from their core information sources in their community or their family.

If there is a secret to life, a meaning of life that goes beyond the mundane stuff we do daily, it must be at a spiritual level. Objects are the means by which our body gets through its day. But it's not how our spirit moves along the eternal continuum.

Those who can only see what they have today, what they can hold in their hands, may be blind to what life is about. They can't see God or the spirits of others, or even their own spirit. They can't see what is "alive." They can' only see "stuff."

Don't hold that against them. That's what they learned in their lives, most of it in childhood.

That's what someone taught them, whether intentionally or by example.

They missed out on learning what life is about because they were possessed by objects that gave them a feeling of security, of personal wealth.

In the absence of what is important in life, they held fast to the trivial.

Don't look to them as role models. Despite what they may think of themselves, they are really more like life's rejects, life's failures. They believe they have it all, which is important to them. And they believe there is nothing more to life.

They could have been taught differently as children.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put meaning to life before it's too late.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl