Finding Meaning in Life Every Day (Without Spiraling Into Existential Dread)
Looking for meaning in life? Start looking for answers and you’ll find endless self-help books, TED Talks, and that one friend who keeps telling you to “manifest abundance”. All well meaning and no doubt helpful if encountered at the right time and place, but when it comes to the big question—“What does it all mean?”—we’re just supposed to figure it out. Why does it feel like people these days are supposed to figure it out earlier and younger.
I for one, feel like I’m stumbling through life like kids in an IKEA, clutching mismatched parts and hoping I’m assembling something meaningful. Some days there is no grand vision or plan. There are dreams and illusions of a future I want, but no meaningful action to make it reality.
The thing with “meaning” is it sounds so…profound. Like you’re supposed to wake up every day and have some grand epiphany that reshapes your entire existence and gives you directions on how to spend each day.
I feel that some days my life is filled with small (literally tiny), mundane (boring and pointless) decisions.Take yesterday, for example. I spent 45 minutes debating whether buying an $8 iced latte was an act of self-care or financial irresponsibility. (Spoiler: I got the latte and felt both). Later, I stared out the window for an embarrassingly long time, wondering if animals ever have existential crises. By dinner, I was Googling, “Why am I like this?”
Not exactly the stuff of Nietzsche, but hey, it was a day.
But the thing is meaning isn’t always deep or obvious. It’s not reserved for mountain-top meditations or moments of extraordinary achievement. Sometimes, meaning is just finding joy in the stupid, tiny things. Like the way your dog looks at you when you get back home after running errands or the pure satisfaction of peeling the protective plastic off a new gadget.
Maybe life isn’t a grand symphony; it’s a series of out-of-tune notes that somehow add up to music.
Finding meaning every day is exhausting. Some days you’re out here solving life’s mysteries, and other days you’re eating cereal for dinner because the dishwasher is full and you can’t deal with it. And that’s okay. The trick isn’t to force meaning where it doesn’t exist; it’s to notice it when it does.
Maybe it’s in the belly laugh you have with a friend. Or in the weirdly satisfying sound of vacuuming crumbs off the carpet. Or in the way you managed to not completely lose your mind listening to older aunties rattle off about parenting.
And when meaning doesn’t show up? That’s when dark humour steps in. Because if you can’t laugh at the absurdity of life, you’re going to spend a lot of time crying into your overpriced latte.
Here’s the truth no one tells you: life is absurd, messy, and mostly unscripted. But in that chaos, I’m realising there’s freedom. You get to decide what matters. And when you find it—whether it’s in a perfectly toasted bagel or a random conversation with a stranger—cling to it. Because those little moments? They’re what make the whole thing worthwhile, all while the bigger picture and meaning unfolds.
