What Constitutes a Meaningful Life

I was talking with a Life Coaching client when she suddenly asked me how I define a meaningful life (I told her I was going to blog about this and she was fine with it.) She asked because a friend of hers said that she didn't feel (her friend that is) that she has a meaningful life. 

I chose this photograph because I think that it epitomizes, in a way, the feeling that a meaningful life is huge, is grand, where someone has to make a change or do something on a grand scale. Back to my client. I told her that I didn't think that having a meaningful life means that you are doing grand things, that your gestures can be small ones rather than grand ones. You can have a meaningful life if what you do adds value to the world. 

This made me think of the Jon Katz, author of the Bedlam Farm blog (here). He has created what he calls The Army of Good. He has readers all over the world who contribute, generally, small amounts of money to help him do good in his community. This includes a number of seemingly small things. He does account for all the money and blogs about where the money goes. All of these seemingly small gestures; however, they are all things that make a huge difference in one person's life. I often ponder what "small" things I can be doing. I don't happen to have an Army of Good to help me do things. I do look at places that I can contribute money - to a non-profit, to a political campaign that seems to fit with my philosophy. 

I also think that the work we do can help define a meaningful life if it helps people. Especially, it seems to me if we love what we do because it then becomes easier to help. I strongly believe that my work doing Channeled Angel Readings and Life Coaching is meaningful work and adds value to the world. 

I was having lunch with a friend a few days after my conversation with my client. My friend suggested that she would add that doing no harm is part of the recipe of having a meaningful life. I think that this is a good addition to the definition. I now think that another possibility is adding beauty in some way to the world.

What do you think constitutes a meaningful life? 

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The first photograph is by Pierre Van Crombrugghe. The second is by Ye Fung Chen. I found both on unsplash.com

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