Road Map Toward a Meaningful Life
Justin Camp
3 min read ⭑
The guys in my weekly men's group and I are currently grappling with the themes presented in a set of books, which also happen to be favorites of some of our Rapt interviewees: Richard Rohr's Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and David Brooks's The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, as well as his latest, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
Each book asks a cardinal question: how do we live meaningful lives? Lives that brighten our days even when the darkness of our world looms. Lives that allow us to endure the kind of suffering that is just a part of just being human. Lives that, at their conclusions, will make us truly proud to have lived them.
And all three learned men agree. Among the key elements leading to healthy, fulfilling lives are (1) loving well the people we've been given (and the people we've been given to), and (2) engaging in meaningful work throughout our lives—even if the definitions and manifestations of what constitutes "work" morph from young adulthood into our prime working years, and then again into retirement.
Today, I want to look at the first component: loving well. "Love," wrote Frankl, "is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire." This truth is certainly confirmed in Scripture: "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly" (1 Peter 4:8, ESV). For us humans, love is the ballgame.
But how should love look in our day-to-day lives? And, most importantly, how do we do it well? How do we act as good, loving parents to our children; good, loving sons and daughters to our parents; good, loving brothers and sisters to our siblings; and good, loving friends to everyone else in our lives? According to Brooks, it's all a matter of practical skill. It "involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well."
Like what? Well, Brooks offers a list of apt and incisive examples:
Disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another's point of view.
And like anything involving practical skill, no person is born expert. One is either apprenticed into competency, or they aren't. The required skills are either modeled for us by someone who performs them well, or they aren't. And for most people living in the early part of the twenty-first century, they haven't been. In fact, wrote Brooks, "it seems like we have intentionally built a society that gives people little guidance on how to perform the most important activities of life."
Looking at my own life, if someone had asked me yesterday to grade myself according to what kind of friend I am to the people in my life, I would have probably said B+ or even A-. Room for improvement, for sure, but pretty good. Upon further reflection, though, thinking back on my last ten or so interactions with close friends and asking myself whether I saw them deeply and allowed them to see me deeply, I'd have to revise my grade down to a D-. Too often, I protect myself by steering conversations toward superficial topics. Too often, I talk too much and tend to brag about my kids. Too often, I prioritize saying something "smart" or offering "wise" advice over listening carefully, over experiencing another person's story with reverence, over sitting with that person in their pain or fear.
Just last week, I had lunch with a dear friend. He and I hadn't seen one another in over a year, so we took turns offering updates on families and work, each of us taking about an hour. It was a wonderful and spirited conversation. However, on my drive home, recalling a couple of subtle and curious things he said, it occurred to me that he might have been trying to tell me something deeper but that I wasn't listening well. Embarrassed, followed up with a call and asked whether I'd been a less-than-awesome friend—and then we had the conversation we should have had at lunch.
We're built to love. We're created by God to be loved by him and to love him back. But we're also created to love all the other people he's created—the precious family, friends, and acquaintances he's put in our lives. And if we're not doing well this thing we're created to do, we violate our nature. We dishonor our designs. And we rob everyone of much of the meaning we're meant to enjoy together.
I do want to do that anymore; I hope to do it a bit less.
Justin Camp is the editor-in-chief of Rapt Interviews. He also created the WiRE for Men devotional and wrote the WiRE Series for Men. His writing has been featured and seen on Charisma, Moody Radio, Focus on the Family, GOD TV, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, Belief.net, LifeWay Men, and other media outlets.