Dear America:
In our age of internet and cell phones, it sometimes seems that we live at the speed of light, and it is easy to get swept away in a chaotic tide of activity. We often find little time for silent reflection. We hardly have time to think at all, never mind time to think about the important questions. And yet we run the risk of arriving breathless at the end of life and finding that we have missed the point. When is the last time you thought about your life, and what you want out of it? What is most important to you in life? Please take a moment now to think about it. Try to pause, silent the inrushing stream of data. if you need help organizing your thoughts, Victor Frankl’s poignant question may help you to get to the heart of the matter. The great psychologist sometimes asked his struggling patients: “Why do you not kill yourself?” Though it seems a bit crass, it is a good question that forces us to think about what is really important to us. If we take the time to reflect, the answer may surprise us, and we may realize that we have been sleeping through life.
So what is it? What is the goal, the meaning, the point of your life? Perhaps you answered that it was your family, or your career, or time with nature. But let me suggest something. Let me suggest that it all boils down to this. The goal of life is to find fulfillment, to maximize our sense of fulfillment. All of the other goals that we may identify, religious or secular, may be reduced to this fundamental principle. In fact, it is the only reasonable answer. It would be unreasonable for someone to do something that did not seek to maximize their own sense of fulfillment. Even self-sacrificial behavior boils down to the same principle. The altruist seeks the fulfillment that he receives from sacrificing himself.
Our question then becomes, how can we maximize our sense of fulfillment? You see, I think we are all always trying to do this, but I do not think that we do it efficiently or reasonably. We in America generally seem to see only one kind of fulfillment, that which comes from physical comfort and pleasure. Even when we are concerned for our families, it is generally with respect to their physical needs and desires. Ours is a culture of entertainment, food, and comfort-seeking. From American Idol and Ipods, to casinos and Coolattas, the icons of our society are all indicative of our physical appetites: for sex, food, money, and comfort.
These things do bring some sense of fulfillment, but let me suggest that fulfillment is short lived and shallow, and does not satisfy. Let me suggest that the highest fulfillment does not come from physical pleasure and security at all, but from less tangible, yet no less real pleasures. I am speaking of such time-honored values as love, friendship, honor, freedom, responsibility, and achievement. From ancient times men have lived fulfilling lives in abject poverty and discomfort, and even in pain, because they sought their fulfillment in these higher sources.
Victor Frankl used another idea to help his patients with meaning-of-life questions. When you are on your death bed, and look back on your life, what would bring you fulfillment then? This question can bring into focus the contrast between the fleeting physical pleasures and those lasting pleasures like love and honor.
These values, developed in mankind from ancient times have become a very real of man himself, of each one of us. Man is built for them, and cannot find fulfillment apart from them. To abandon the quest for these values is to abandon any hope of true fulfillment, and it is to abandon reason.
This is not to say that the quest for lower sources of fulfillment must be abandoned, but we must seek the right combination of pleasures, we must seek the lower pleasures within the context of our quest for the higher. But the higher take priority over the lower.
And yet we in America live, by and large, for the lower pleasures, and we pay the price. We live empty lives, always chasing the next dollar, meal, sexual experience, or whatever fix it is we are hooked on at the moment. And it even affects our politics.
Even our politics is influenced by this culture of comfort. “Americans vote with their pocketbooks” is an old, and accurate, slogan. But I think it is broader than cash. If life is about comfort, then I will vote to ensure and enhance that comfort. And this is why our country has become increasingly socialistic. Socialism promises security of comfort.
The problem is, it violates the higher values.
Check back soon for Part 2.
