Perennial Wisdom
Join the search! Perennial Wisdom (formerly In Search of Wisdom) is a podcast for seekers and curious minds. Each episode explores philosophical and spiritual traditions for practical wisdom for modern living.
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How to Find Meaning in the Mundane
In this episode of Perennial Wisdom, I explore the challenges of creating meaning in the mundane aspects of life. The episode is delivered in a video essay format integrated with art, text, and images. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have feedback, suggestions, or requests!
Key Takeaways
The role of courage in creation
How to accept the eternal truths of life
What it means to say “yes” to life
***Members can read the essay (or transcript) below.
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Episode Transcript
The following is a transcript from “How to Find Meaning in the Mundane” from the Perennial Wisdom podcast.
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Do you ever find your life to be monotonous? If you look up the meaning of the word, you’ll find things like “tedious, repetitious, or lacking in variety and interest.”
Something that I’ve been curious about for the last few years, at least, is how we find “meaning” in the more mundane aspects of life.
There has been much written about meaning. Consider the psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). In it, Frankl explored how we might find (or make) meaning under challenging situations. He famously said, …
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
But I’m more curious about how we find meaning, not necessarily in complex or dangerous circumstances like being in a holocaust prison camp. Or James Stockdale’s experience as a POW during the Vietnam War, which you can find in Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot.
My interest (selfishly, I might add) is finding meaning in the mundane (e.g., the dull or more boring and repetitive aspects of life). Think of the daily carpool line to pick up your kids or navigating the fluorescently lit aisles of your local supermarket. Or maybe it’s a nagging illness or a chronic pain of some sort.
These types of challenges seldom make for a bestselling book. Nevertheless, they are the challenges that most of us face every day.
