Why now? Why make now meaningful? Because a today that is not meaningful will not morph into a meaningful tomorrow; not if we do nothing about today.
Make now meaningful. Why make now meaningful? Because way too many people are searching for meaning away from their current circumstances and environments. Or worse, they have given up.
Life is suffering. That’s clear. There is no more basic, irrefutable truth… What in the world should be done about that? … Pursue pleasure. Follow your impulses. Live for the moment. Do what’s expedient. Lie, cheat, steal, deceive, manipulate - but don’t get caught. In an ultimately meaningless universe, what possible difference could it make? - Dr Jordan B. Peterson
Dissatisfied with now, we often attempt to get out of now is by getting into something else, somewhere else. However, very soon, we realise that that other job or new pleasure are not quite what they initially seemed to be. The same cycle of being dissatisfied resurfaces and the search starts all over again. What if the solution to feeling stuck in a rut, that life is not purposeful, is to start making now meaningful and burrow our way out?
make meaning today
Make now meaningful is chronological - the future is necessarily an accumulation of many todays. If we are not able to make meaning out today, tomorrow will not miraculously become meaningful. This is evident with students struggling in school. An oft proffered diagnosis of this wrangle is that students are unable to see the relevance of what they are learning to the real world. They are unable to make meaning of the tasks that lay before them. Consequently, they do as they are told based on the promise that the future will be good if they complied.
Failing to make meaning in school hinders the growth of student perspectives. An archetype of this is the much maligned quadratic formula. Generations of students have protested against the need to learn how to solve quadratic equations. Apart from remembering how to do it for the test or national examination, which is needed for progression to the next level of academic pursuit, which ultimately culminates in earning a degree in a prestigious university, which then translates into a good job, which will lead to a happy life, quadratic equations are useless. Or is it? What if students are told no quadratic equation no wifi? And this is not a punishment for not finishing their homework, but that signal processing is impossible without quadratic equations.
Failing to make now meaningful (when learning about quadratic equations is in progress) drives students into what Marton and Säljö termed the surface approach to learning. Students experience learning as an act of collecting discrete units of information for the sake of answering test questions and satisfying an external demand. Students end up enduring the experience (or not) instead of enjoying and growing.
Conversely, when students treat the text as something that has a coherent structure of meaning, they are engaged in what Marton and Säljö termed the deep approach to learning. Students examine the text’s underlying concerns and implications, as well as, construct meaning for themselves. In so doing, they continually renew or enhance their perspectives of the world, thereby build the capacity to deal with challenges that get thrown their way.
Another example of pinning meaning in the future rather than now is working in a job that is seemingly meaningless for the sake of a promised reward, perhaps a promotion or a raise.
make meaning here
The other aspect of making now meaningful is geographical. We are human beings. We can only be at one place at one time. And being at one place at one time alludes to now being synonymous with here. Hence, we have to make meaning wherever we are. Failure to do so causes frustration, stress, and anxiety. This is well illustrated by those who work a seemingly meaningless job because they need the salary to provide for their family. In so doing, they inadvertently pin the meaning of their work there (home) instead of here (the workplace) . Another example is working mothers who grapple with their guilt when they are at work because they feel they should be with their babies at home. However, when they're home with their babies, they worry about letting co-workers down. We have to be fully present and make now (also here) meaningful in order to be more productive and effective. That way we will also carry a lot less angst.
Between now and future, here and there, is a fertile ground for breeding stress, frustration, anxiety, fear, eventually brewing into the worst of them all - resentment.
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