Zero to 1: Confrontation with Reality and the Quest for Meaning
Transcending Man's Fundamental Problem
4 INSIGHTS
I.
Have you ever wondered how one person who has nothing can be blissfully happy and wholly fulfilled while a man who has everything can become so lost as to end it all? Why is abundance and having it all never enough to quench man's search for fulfillment?
II.
Man often gets lost looking for fulfillment, meaning, and purpose.
III.
Looking for meaning is a fool's errand. Whether we believe that life is meaningful or meaningless, in both cases, we are attributing meaning to life and our experiences.
IV.
You don't live in a world of indiscriminate random objects but in a world of meaning and significance. When we fail to go within and discover how we are active creators of our world, we go without.
3 QUOTES
I.
"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." Seneca
How can a man of plenty be so poor? Because, from his perspective, he does not have enough.
II.
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Carl Jung
Looking for fulfillment, meaning, and purpose out in the world and believing that you will be happy once you have them is putting having ahead of being. But being happy is a state of being; to attain it, you have to work on that state and practice it in the same way a musician becomes great by playing his instrument. One does not become a great guitarist by purchasing a great guitar.
III.
"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Friedrich Nietzsche
Here, Nietzche points out the power of meaning. Meaning defines our relationship with our world, and when we have our "Why," we can overcome any suffering.
2 QUESTIONS
Has your suffering every had a meaning so powerful that you were grateful for it? What meaning are you assigning to your life right now?