The Financial Philosopher: Life Planning Part II: The Search for Meaning

"Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it." ~ Viktor Frankl

What are you living for? What is the meaning of your existence? Are you existing to fulfill the objectives of monetary plans and material pursuits? Or are your financial objectives supporting a life plan -- a plan to fulfill meaningful pursuits? These are questions that philosophy asks; and they are questions that you should be asking yourself with regard to your own existence.

Today we will receive guidance from some of the key philosophers in history who formed existential thought. This guidance will help you in finding your own path to a meaningful existence. The precursors to existentialism were Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Today we will learn from them and from two other philosophers, Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

"The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss -- an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. -- is sure to be noticed." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I have no doubt that there are many people today who have lost themselves, completely unaware of this loss, yet, they are highly aware of their financial losses. Soren Kierkegaard said that it is important for people to have a meaningful existence, and he did not suggest this meaning be found by monetary means. He said that meaning comes from a sense that people sense their lives as having a permanent significance and that most people fail to find meaning because they sense their lives as having only temporary significance, and therefore pursue temporary pleasures, such as money and material wealth, rather than truly meaningful pursuits.
His philosophies were based upon the individual, especially the individual's choice to live freely and responsibly -- that a philosophy comes from within oneself -- that philosophy is not objective.
Although Kierkegaard's philosophy supports Christianity and religious pursuits, he felt most of the Christians he knew were too comfortable with themselves, implying that their search for meaning could be minimized by becoming too quickly satisfied with their lives, paradoxically overlooking its meaning.

"He who has a 'why' to live for can bear almost any how." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche believed in the importance of the individual; however he believed that individuality is without limit or bounds. Individuality to Nietzsche, therefore, is indefinable.
Nietzsche also believed, similar to Kierkegaard, that there is no objectivity, only subjectivity; "there are no facts, only interpretations."
Contrary to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche did not support religious pursuits and believed that organized religion was an example of what he called "the herd" -- all those average people who think and act alike, which behavior would limit, not expand, the individual's potential. In other words, the things that make you happy are not determined by what other people think, but they are determined solely by you -- the individual.

"Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for." ~ Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl, a psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, observed in concentration camps during World War II, that those that gave up on life, who had lost all hope for a future, were inevitably the first to die.
Terrible as it was, his experience in Auschwitz reinforced what was already one of his key ideas: Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.
The greatest task, to Frankl, for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources of meaning: 1) In work (doing something significant), 2) In love (caring for another person), and 3) In courage during difficult times.

"Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man." ~ Martin Heidegger

Heidegger placed an emphasis on language as the vehicle through which the question of one's being (existence) could be unfolded. He is certainly not the first philosopher who has warned of (and complained about) the inadequacies or sometimes complete falsehoods of language and the words that we use to communicate ideas.
If, for example, one assumes (and acts in accordance to) the conventional definition of words, such as rich, strength and success, one is then bound to the limits of such definitions. If you defined rich as meaning "the point at which I have enough," you are rich at the very moment you decide that you are content, regardless of your financial worth, which is a conventional measure of rich.
Heidegger believed there is no reason or explanation for life until we decide individually what we believe in and that it's up to the individual to decide what one should do about their life.

And so you now have some of the thoughts and philosophies of some of the greatest thinkers in history. These existential philosophies will help form the structure of your life plan -- the subject of the next post here at The Financial Philosopher:

Questions: There are questions that you will ask yourself to help clarify your desired life outcomes, to align your priorities with your pursuits and to define the meaning of words for yourself so you do not limit yourself to the conventional definitions that can be quite misleading.
Outcomes: Your life has meaning and purpose that goes beyond your life. In forming your life plan, you will begin with the end (and beyond) in mind.
Priorities & Pursuits: You will find that the visualization and clarification of your desired Outcomes, aided by asking the appropriate Questions, will enable the alignment of your actions (pursuits) with meaning and purpose (priorities).

Please join me next week as we continue and clarify your search for meaning.

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Related Posts:

Life Planning Part I: Are You a Tool?

Life Planning Part III: Creating the Plan

Viktor Frankl Image by Shannon

Comments

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

Posted by: dissertation help | April 23, 2009 at 01:02 AM

dh: Thanks for the comment! I agree that blogs have made useful information quite abundant and accessible. Just be careful not to allow all that information to distract you!

Thanks again...

Kent

Posted by: Kent @ The Financial Philosopher | April 23, 2009 at 09:07 AM

Very thoughtful and interesting post. I just finished "Man's Search for Meaning" and some of the ideas are very uplifting. While I agree that "doing" and "experiencing" help in our search for meaning, I think Frankl's glorification of suffering is a bit of a stretch. Suffering in itself does not necessarily lead to finding meaning. Rather, I think where suffering surely helps is giving you a better perspective. After going through the worst suffering, we learn to value things better, and are wise enough to ignore, and therefore be undisturbed by, the small irritants and rigours of life. It makes us resilient and imbues in us a "can do" spirit, as in - "After what I have gone through, I can surely ride over any storm that I may encounter"

Posted by: Nilanshuk Haldar | May 03, 2009 at 02:56 AM

Nilanshuk:

Thanks for the comment! I agree that suffering helps in giving one a "better perspective," as you say.

I do not believe, however, that Frankl glorifies suffering or suggests that suffering necessarily leads to meaning.

Instead, I believe Frankl offers a means of accepting suffering as a normal course of life and that those who can attach meaning to suffering can survive and grow beyond the suffering.

"What is to give light must endure burning." ~ Viktor Frankl

Thanks again for the comment!

Posted by: Kent @ The Financial Philosopher | May 04, 2009 at 10:29 AM