MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES
CHOOSING WHICH ARE MEANINGFUL AND OF VALUE TO YOU
Although we give a meaning or value to everything we do, I am talking here about what we give the most meaning to. And how much meaning we give to something can be different for different people.
However, I caution you to learn what true value in life is. And I caution you that there are many, many activities that are meaningful (and valuable), so many that you need not and should not toss in anything of low value!!!!!
Although we can feel there is meaning in someone approving of us that may actually just be a lessening of someone's need to be approved and to be judged worthy. So that would be an offset against a negative, but I would hold it not as a true value activity. Instead, learning how not to need approval nor need to prove oneself worthy would be a very high value activity that is a "multiplier". It is a multiplier because having achieved the lesson and corrected the misbeliefs will make life more pleasant (i.e. less negative in thinking). And it changes the very most important, most meaningful factor in your life, your background conversation that goes on in your head virtually constantly, over and over and over.
There is a great difference in fear-driven drivers and value-driven choices.
Multiplicative meaning activities (learn once, get multiple payoffs)
Changing for the better:
One's own view about the world.
One's happiness and happiness practices .
Building one's life competence such that one feels secure, confident, strong, and happy
Adopting a clear purpose in life, a mission contributing to something you highly value
Could be contributing to people or perfecting something with excellence or achieving something notable.
(But there must be caution here, for driving ourselves too hard, without personal balance of life
values, can lead to less total life value.)
Living true to one's values (and also standing for oneself)
Spiritual development (the "promise" of being a higher functioning, virtuous person
Individual + meaning activities
Contributing to those closest to you (far, far, far more valuable than all the following combined)
Spouse
Children
Grandchildren
Helping a cause (church, organization that furthers something good for humanity, etc.)
Volunteering
Contributing to fellow human beings.
Contributing to my own well-being, health
Helping people do better in life (and doing it repeatedly improves one's self image, so that is of lasting value)
Acts of kindness, acts of love
Seeing other parts of the world - can be enjoyable but insights and experiences can be meaningful
Reviewing good memories
Appreciation of beauty, excellence, man's progress and technological miracles
Reviewing and stating one's gratitude and awe for life and the many things in it.
Individual
Feeling a deep connection with another.
Something related to the sweetness of love, loving or being loved.
Being close with friends
Doing something that gives you peace of mind
Meditating
Reviewing good memories (also above)
Appreciating oneself
Appreciating life
Expressing gratitude for all one has and all there is
Feeling "strong"
Feeling certainty
Feeling safe
The expression of loving, of caring
Although not "meaningful" per se, the fact that one "feels good" (which "means" something positive to our mind) gives value to "enjoyment", but be careful of wrong choices and bad side effects. See
