How meaningful are we?
Driven by speed and the fear of missing out, we rarely ask ourselves any significant question about our place in life. We just live. Always looking to acquire stuff, enjoy the moment, and for some of us learn new things and evolve.
One day, we reach a period of our life where a few important questions arise. They take hold of our minds and urge us to find genuine answers:
“How meaningful is our existence? When we are gone, will we be missed? How much, by whom, and for what reasons?”
These simple questions lead to deep introspection and some scary thoughts.
We think of a long list of people that we know and then try to figure out what void would our absence leave in their lives. A diabolic process with potentially very disappointing outcomes.
In reverse order of importance, let’s start with the colleagues at work. This is a rather easy one. Unless we are Steve Jobs, and even then, Apple is thriving after he is gone, then no one at work will miss us beyond a few days. We will be replaced and forgotten by the vast majority of people who worked with us. There is the rare exception where a co-worker has become our friend. Indeed …
How about our friends? They typically come in three kinds. The first kind are the ones we see every now and then over a meal or few drinks, the “occasionals”. Then there are the ones that shared with us a big chunk of our history, but circumstances have brought us physically and often mentally apart, the “historicals”. And finally, there are the ones that are part of our weekly lives; we don’t necessarily go back for a long time, but they are present in almost everything we do, the “trendies”. The “historicals” can also become “trendies” if life circumstances bring us geographically closer to each other, and the mental connection is not entirely lost.
How meaningful are we to each category of our friends?
The first category of friends, the “occasionals”, would hardly notice our absence. They will mention us in once or twice in some of their conversations during few weeks after our departure, and then they will forget even our name.
The “historicals” live in the memories that we created with them, back then. We already belong to their past, something they lost a while ago. So, for them, our disappearance will simply enforce their feeling of loss. Meanwhile, our jointly lived adventures will continue to illustrate their nostalgic stories about a past that will never come back.
The third category, the “trendies” will surely experience a shock, as something will be missed from their regular lives. After the passing sadness, they will deploy the necessary efforts to fill the gap left by our absence. Nothing is unsurmountable here, few new habits to develop, maybe new restaurants or pubs to discover and get used to, and then everyone moves on. Pessimistically, it is a matter of a few months at most.
The bottom line is quite disappointing: no friend’s life will be altered by our absence. All things will remain on the same course. As if the wheels hit a little bump on the road. Everyone is a bit shaken, but the journey continues and neither the car nor the passengers are scathed, not even a little injury. More scare than harm. And so it goes.
With friends, our absence behaves as a trigger for their own anxieties and fears. They suddenly start reflecting on their own lives and destiny, and how it could have been them. From this vantage point, they mourn us, deeply grateful that they are not the ones being mourned. We are gone, and they are still around. They return to normality, fairly quickly. They feel lucky that they are still alive and kicking, even though they lament, less and less every day, the fate that took us away earlier than they expected, always hoping that this will never happen to them.
All in all, our meaning to our friends is blown out of proportion when we are alive. You are like my brother or sister. Best friends forever. And many similar statements about the greatness of our friendship and the importance of our being. Truthfully, the true measure of our meaning to our friends is revealed when we are gone. It doesn’t amount to much. Nothing to be proud of, attached to, or cherish beyond its worth. Friends come and go, and we will overcome them as they will overcome us, fast and rather painlessly.
Finally, comes the turn of the naturally closest people in our life, our family. A very delicate subject, that I will treat with the utmost precision, logic, and empathy.
What defines a family? A vast question with many modern answers. In our context, I will use the traditional definition of a family as a foundation: “a group of people sharing a common ancestor”. A
nd on top of this foundation, I will add other attributes: “members of the same family share a common purpose and a set of core values, upon which they build relationships among themselves and with society.” In some rare occurrences, with extremely close and loyal friends, families can extend beyond the common ancestor. It is a matter of shared purpose and values, with loyalty sitting at the top.
For a family to form and be worthy of its name and the meaning attached to it, relationships among members need to be built on a mutual and good understanding of the other, their aspirations, their concerns, and their goals in life. Moreover, each member of the family needs to be driven by the unquestioned willingness to do what’s in their power to help another member in their life journey.
Families are extremely complex, delicate, and rarely withstand the test of the generations. When they do, they thrive by extending into sub-families built on the same purpose and values. From one original leader, the ancestor, many new leaders are created to continue to carry the expanded family forward. Families fall apart when some leaders challenge the purpose and the values in isolation from the other leaders of the family. Some of them do it intentionally to break away and start their own family, and that’s the way of life. But more often than not, it’s done, and in these instances not just by leaders, but by any member of the family, out of ignorance, selfishness, and stupidity.
Either way, strong families continue without some of their leaders or dissident members. Weak families, lacking a strong purpose and values do not overcome these challenges and split into units of relatives that share the same ancestor, and only that.
So, how is this related to our meaningfulness to our family?
The type of family we belong to will largely define the importance of each of its members and how dearly they are valued and will be missed by everyone in this family. I said largely, but not entirely, because other factors will play, namely the individual relationships we have built with other members of our family. For the sake of clarity and simplicity I would refer to two types of families, the tightly knit ones, around strong purpose and core values, I would call these “strong” families, and the families bound by blood and not much else in terms of moral compass and deep care for each other, I would call these “weak” families.
Whether we belong to a strong or weak family, demonstrating our understanding and care to one or many members of this family will eventually make us meaningful to these members, and therefore dearly missed by them when we are gone. Surely no one will be missed forever, but the ones who care will be remembered longer and talked about during at least one generation. By the same token, the ones who don’t give a shit beyond themselves will never be meaningful to anyone outside their immediate descendants, if that, and therefore will be forgotten quickly after their departure.
The main difference between strong and weak families is that in the strong ones, caring for each other, in the full sense of caring, mentally and physically, is not an option. It is part of the unwritten code of how these families operate. Caring is not a choice we make and apply to certain members of the family; it is a duty that every member of the family owes to the other one. No question asked, no analysis made, no maybes or perhaps. Lending a hand to the other is simply part of the family’s DNA, it is given freely without any expectation of direct return. What makes this possible is everyone’s certainty that they would be supported by everyone else if and when they need it. This automatic behavior emanates from the purpose and core values of the family, as embodied by its leaders, and each worthy member. So, in strong families, every member feels valued and meaningful. This unshakable feeling bolsters their confidence and enables them to lead a more solid and often more successful life. They know that if they fall, there will be someone there to pick them up, while at the same time they are constantly driven to become stronger, to pull upwards any other member who might at some point stumble and need their support. This dual state of relative peace of mind of being cared for and a pressing ambition to evolve towards more power to be able to take care of others is a unique recipe for developing impactful and fulfilled human beings. Strong families breed strong individuals. Meaningful individuals that will leave a mark and be remembered.
There is no doubt in my mind about the veracity of the above-mentioned fact, even if few exceptions always apply. Some individuals are, were extremely impactful and meaningful without necessarily belonging to a strong family. I am sure you have a few examples in mind.
Since our meaning is so much dependent on the strength of the family we were born into or belong to, an essential subsidiary question imposes itself: “beyond the purpose and the core values what contributes, daily, in making a family strong?”.
first leader (typically the father but could be the mother) shows the direction and makes the family purpose a possible reality. He is the source of wisdom. He is always taking a step back and looking at the longer term. He is the guide and the ultimate decision-maker. The father, in alignment with the mother, is responsible for preparing his succession. As the head of the family, he must ensure that everything will continue, smoothly, after he’s gone.
Second leader (typically the mother) brings the family together around living the core values. She is guided by her motherly love and her womanly intuition. These inseparables make her words the respected voice of the family truth. She brings a different point of view and helps the father get out of deadlocked situations, without losing face. She is the oil in the complex machinery of the family.
The other leaders follow the first leader out of a deeply rooted principle and blind trust, without questions. They support his decisions and ensure other members also stick to them. They heed the second leader’s words driven by their sacred love for her and their permanent desire to keep her satisfied. Her blessing of what they undertake under the leadership of the first leader is sought in every occasion without exception and nothing is done without it.
Lastly, all members of the family follow their leaders. They religiously uphold the intimate conviction that nothing and no one can stand between them or bring them apart. They design their lives, welcome new members to the family, undertake every action and utter every word, based on that deep understanding and unshakable belief.
Surely, society can continue without strong families. Actually, in most of the western world, it has been the case for some time now. What is at risk in these societies is the place of the average human, who forms the vast majority of our species. In a society deprived of strong families, either individually we make an impact and a place for ourselves or we become irrelevant. When there is no strong family to belong to, a family where our meaning is never lost, then despair takes hold. Simply because, sooner or later, we realize that, as individuals, most of us are meaningless.