my search for meaning.

i used to fantasize about taking a year off. i would travel the world, volunteer, or write a book.

and then, i had 6 months off of work with my cancer diagnosis. i had all the time in the world. i filled my life with nourishing activities: long walks, yoga practice, meditation, sleep, time with friends and loved ones, writing and appointments.

but, there was too much space. it was endless. my grief and sadness spread out like air and filled all the emptiness. it didn’t make a life, or at least not one that i recognized. i spent the majority of the day in my own head. for an already reflective person, this was intense. i had no purpose outside of myself – everything was about wellness and cancer.

my focus the whole time i was in canada, was to get back to bangkok, and back to my work. most of you know that i am one of those annoying people who truly loves her job. i see impact in what i do everyday, i am energized by the challenge, and i feel called to educational leadership. in the depths of my sadness, having bangkok on the horizon became my north star. when i managed to make it happen, i was overjoyed. i was back to my calling.

however, when i would speak about my desire to be working, or post about it on social media – sometimes, i felt a sense of judgement. the implication being, “your purpose is greater than any job“. i felt embarrassed that work had become so central in my life. that without work, life felt meaningless. in some ways, i didn’t mean for it to happen this way. if i was busy building a family, work probably wouldn’t be at the center. or…. maybe it still would.

i’ve had a lot of thinking time over the last year. and i’ve been considering: what makes a meaningful, purposeful life? how do i want to spend my days? as annie dillard reminds us,

on this quest for meaning, i’ve been reading a lot. i’ve been talking to counselors. i’ve been writing. i’ve been talking it out with friends. what i’ve come to understand is that it is really about having a raison d’être, as the french say. a why for living. can that why for living be our work? is it love? is it the lessons we learn as we struggle along? on my 19 for 2019 list was to read ‘man’s search for meaning’, by holocaust survivor viktor frankl. he sums it up more eloquently than i ever could:

in cognitive coaching, we teach about three universal human goals. after safety, and basic human survival needs, humans have a desire for identity, connectedness and potency. as i’ve been considering my why for living, i’ve been thinking about them in relationship to these three universal goals.

connectedness

when i think of connectedness, i think of love. i would love it if my sole reason for being was love. whether that be the love of a partner, or the love for a child, it feels to me like the most fundamental reason to live. i’ve always loved love. i remember the first time i watched the movie ‘love, actually’ and i cried and cried and cried tears of happiness for all the forms of love that exist on this earth. once, a counsellor asked me to distill who i am into one word (actually i cheated and couldn’t pick one), but one of the words was mother. i always felt like i’ve been put on this earth to be a mom. some people have suggested that my illness would be much worse if there were children involved. of course, this is true. they are right. it would be terrifying to imagine leaving children without their mother, or to imagine finally meeting a true love, and then having to go and die on them. that would be a thousand times more painful than what i’m experiencing now. but, as paul kalanithi, author of ‘when breath becomes air’ wrote, when he and his wife made the decision to have a child while he was confronted with a terminal cancer diagnosis:

“Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?” she asked. “Don’t you think saying goodbye to your child will make your death more painful?”

“Wouldn’t it be great if it did?” I said. Lucy and I both felt that life wasn’t about avoiding suffering.

sometimes i think of the imaginary family that is waiting for me at home, the imaginary husband and children that love me unconditionally and will miss me so much when i am gone. there are so many unhappy, miserable people who have someone who loves them. how does life work this way? but just like cancer, it isn’t fair. it never has been.

i’m not looking for pity – there is an abundance of love and connection in my life. i am so fortunate to have a caring family, so many loving friends, and i also genuinely love myself. i don’t know exactly when i realized i loved myself but it was sometime between the years 2005 and 2012. it feels funny to admit that, but life has been better since. as an extrovert, human connection fuels my energy, but most importantly we need to feel connected with – and enjoy spending time with – ourselves.

i’ve always believed that love would work out for me. or it won’t. but it feels better to believe it will – you can fall madly in love at any age, of course! i’ve never been one of those who people who moped around waiting for someone to love them. i feel worthy of love, and i know i will be a really great mom. i love that i have a beautiful tapestry of friends around the world, and i get so much fulfillment out of those relationships.

cancer has brought the desire for connectedness back up to the forefront of my consciousness. when world war two veterans and survivors talked about what got them through the atrocities, it was often love.

identity

it is the stories we tell ourselves about who we are that make up who we are. it is also our beliefs, values and attributes, as well as a combination of culture, gender, occupation etc.

i thought i knew who i was until about a year ago. in the past 14 months, a number of significant experiences have occurred which have shaken the foundations of who i am. of course, most obviously, has been my diagnosis. sometimes, i’m not sure any of my pre-cancer self has survived. but, i see glimpses of it. even though i am forever changed, deep down, i’m still me.

in order to make sense of my out-of-order-illness, i’ve been trying to figure out how to integrate it into the story of who i am. me, a sick person? that alone is hard to find the words to articulate. getting cancer also led to so much grief. at first, i struggled a lot with why this had happened to me. was this cancer happening to teach me a lesson? had i done something dreadfully wrong? i didn’t need a stupid redemption story. i had a great life! as i worked to find meaning in my grief, i started to resent it. i was already a decent person prior to getting cancer, right?! i didn’t need this experience to teach me something fundamental about appreciating life. i love the way megan devine puts it:

we cannot control much of what happens to us. we like to think we can, but so much is truly out of our hands. all we can control is our response to what is happening to us. it has become desperately important to me that this illness and pain isn’t meaningless. perhaps that is why i write about it so freely. perhaps i am hoping that someone else will see themselves in my story, and it will companion them through their own pain. i know and believe that there doesn’t have to be anything good that comes out of this pain; but i can’t help but hope my own experience with illness will be useful to me (or others) in some way one day.

the question has evolved from: why is this happening to me? to: how do i live, now that it has?

potency

the other night, i was googling famous people who had died before they were 40. apologies if this is upsetting. welcome to the dark and twisty reality of late nights with cancer. i wanted to know if it was possible to have an impact if you died young. it turns out princess diana was only 36 when she died, and she certainly did! i digress. a few days later, in tears, i told a friend about this. he responded: “you don’t need to be on google to have had an impact. you’ve had an impact on our family.“

when confronted my mortality, i’ve been thinking about the trace i will leave behind when i go (and sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we all will!). what indications will there be that i lived? what small particles will be left behind? what energy will remain? what objects or artifacts will leave clues that i was here? it is not about having a tree planted, or a building named after me, or a funeral. in fact, it feels like the opposite — i want to create subtle ripples that will continue on, inspiring others to live joyously, gratefully, passionately.

part of the reason i am so fulfilled by my work is it has allowed me have a sense of potency, of impact. it also allows me to merge all of my passions: travel, education, leadership. i know that we have an impact in life beyond our work, but i enjoy getting out of bed in the morning knowing i believe in the work we are doing.

if i were told i could never work again, would i still have a meaningful, purposeful life? and conversely, if i knew the end was soon, would i continue working?

back to viktor frankl, who reminds us:

meaningful work can look a lot of different ways. the second word i gave the counselor when he asked me to distill who i was into one word was inspiration. i think, upon reflection, that this comes back to potency. i want to live and work in a way that inspires myself and others. so, as long as work continues to feel impactful, meaningful, purposeful, i will continue to prioritize it in my life.

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given the year that i have had, how is it possible that i am still (mostly) okay? i’m not quite sure i know the answer. i believe at a fundamental level that we make our own happiness. obviously, i believe NOT HAVING CANCER would make me much happier, but i don’t think it precludes me from being so. happiness is not something we pursue, or do, or become, it is something we are.

my search for meaning doesn’t end with one blog post. but, for now, to return to the questions i asked at the start: what makes a meaningful, purposeful life? how do i want to spend my days?

experiencing love in all of its forms,

immersed in work that makes an impact,

integrating the new parts of me into the story of who i am,

and being gratefully, graciously, myself.

 
*this photo makes me unbelievably happy. it was taken in wadi rum, jordan, in october 2011. it reminds me i am wildly independent, adventurous, spontaneous, and stronger than i can even imagine. i’d love to bottle up all the energy in this picture and keep it with me every single day of my life.