Laura Berman Fortgang on our quest for a meaningful life

Laura Berman Fortgang relates a story about the Dalai Lama addressing a group of scientists and saying “Curiosity is part of my life, part of my self. Look at this body. Some areas have more hair, some less. Why?”

Fortgang continues in her book The Little Book on Meaning: Why We Crave It, How We Create It, “Instead of answering the question, he stopped at the question.

“It is this feeling of wonder, openness, and curiosity that can give birth to so much as long as we can get comfortable exploring the vastness of the unanswered questions.

“Leading life in a meaningful way requires embracing the empty spaces, the blanks and vastness. Living in the gap, we find ourselves.”

But “embracing the empty spaces” is no easy task, and can be a journey of turmoil and pain, as she points out in her article What Is This Pain?

She writes, “As a life coach and now, more recently, as an interfaith minister as well, I am called on by people to help them heal their lives. ‘Let me understand my place. That will bring me peace,’ is something I hear often.

“I know the longing that comes with those thoughts. There is pain in not seeing a clear path set out before us to follow.”

She also assures, “Meaning is actually all around us, and the circumstances surrounding it can be like an Escher print.

“Life can look quite meaningless until we focus on a certain point or points and the picture changes. As it comes into focus, we find the peace that discovering meaning can bring.”

See the article for a movie by Mark and Laura Fortgang, with a number of people talking about their own personal perspectives.

Related Talent Development Resources pages :

Meaning and Purpose

Existential dread