THE MAKING OF MEANING ■ 217these two ways of giving meaning to life been? We might conclude that
Napoleon brought chaos to thousands of lives, whereas Mother Teresa
reduced the entropy in the consciousness of many. But here we will not
try to pass judgment on the objective value of actions; we will be con
cerned instead with the more modest task of describing the subjective
order that a unified purpose brings to individual consciousness. In this
sense the answer to the old riddle “What is the meaning of life?” turns
out to be astonishingly simple. The meaning of life is meaning: whatever
it is, wherever it comes from, a unified purpose is what gives meaning
to life.
The second sense of the word meaning refers to the expression of
intentionality. And this sense also is appropriate to the issue of how to
create meaning by transforming all life into a flow activity. It is not
enough to find a purpose that unifies one’s goals; one must also carry
through and meet its challenges. The purpose must result in strivings;
intent has to be translated into action. We may call this resolution in the
pursuit of one’s goals. What counts is not so much whether a person
actually achieves what she has set out to do; rather, it matters whether
effort has been expended to reach the goal, instead of being diffused or
wasted. When “the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale
cast of thought,” Hamlet observed, “... enterprises of great pith and
moment... lose the name of action.” Few things are sadder than
encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot
muster enough energy to do it. “He who desires but acts not,” wrote
Blake with his accustomed vigor, “breeds pestilence.”
The third and final way in which life acquires meaning is the result
of the previous two steps. When an important goal is pursued with
resolution, and all one’s varied activities fit together into a unified flow
experience, the result is that harmony is brought to consciousness. Some
one who knows his desires and works with purpose to achieve them is
a person whose feelings, thoughts, and actions are congruent with one
another, and is therefore a person who has achieved inner harmony. In
the 1960s this process was called “getting your head together,” but in
practically every other historical period a similar concept has been used
to describe this necessary step toward living a good life. Someone who
is in harmony no matter what he does, no matter what is happening to
him, knows that his psychic energy is not being wasted on doubt, regret,
guilt, and fear, but is always usefully employed. Inner congruence ulti
mately leads to that inner strength and serenity we admire in people who
seem to have come to terms with themselves.
Purpose, resolution, and harmony unify life and give it meaning