I Think Life Is Empty And Meaningless. Still Want My Advice On Life?
Life is empty and meaningless and it’s empty and meaningless that it’s empty and meaningless.
When I posted that Life is empty and meaningless, I was just curious to see what type of comments I would get. I could have explained what I meant then, but I thought it would serve me better to wait.
Some people thought I was being morbid, some were offended, some thought I would attract more emptiness and meaningless into my life, while others saw the possibilities, and to my surprise and amusement someone actually called me out on being a landmark forum graduate. This only adds to the fact that I’m sharing these concepts with you because I believe you deserve to know them.
Perhaps defining what I mean by the above sentence is a huge contradiction. Why define something that I say is empty and meaningless. The reason I do this is because I want you to receive the benefit of this belief. This paradigm suits me well in life, and enables me to be happy, experience unconditional love, as well as push myself to new and exciting limits.
My paradigm of life liberates me from past fears, traumas, and self-limiting beliefs. Thoughts that dictate that I might fail, won’t make it, aren’t good enough, not smart or good-looking enough, and any other onslaught of beliefs that could potentially stop me from reaching my goals and fully enjoying life are absolutely unacceptable.
I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness. When I think of thoughts as either pro-joy, or anti-joy, without a gray area, it helps me to filter out what I do not consider an adequate use of my time, resources, and thought processes.
I do believe there is an adequate purpose in studying ourselves and looking at why we have certain negative beliefs and emotions. I do not believe such thoughts have any other practical use in our daily lives. It is fun to have a breakthrough, in which you realize that you’ve been limiting your joy by holding onto a self-limiting belief. At the same time, it is important to stop dwelling on these thoughts soon after your a-ha! moment.
It’s true, what you think about expands, so why is it that I think about life being empty and meaningless? What most people do not realize is that we have a special mental and spiritual ability to start our lives with a blank-slate, whenever the urge strikes us or the need arises. Letting go of the past enables us to create our future. With emptiness and meaninglessness, we are armed with a future of endless possibilities.
By having such beliefs, you create a reality for yourself where there are no excuses. Surely there will still be challenges, but they’ll no longer be problems or impenetrable walls. Instead, life will be a game, in which you pick your thoughts, your activities, and go on a journey that is fun, challenging, and exciting. Once you adopt this paradigm, there is no more looking back (unless that’s what you want).
Who would you be without self limiting beliefs?
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Posted by Alex Shalman in Personal Development, Thinking | January 21, 2008 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 35 comments
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Hi Alex,
I like this ..
I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.
Stumbled !
Gamy
After years of trying I think I finally assimilated this attitude when I had kids. When my son spilled a plate of spaghetti and sauce on the floor he was surprised that I wasn’t angry, but I pointed out that there are way more important things to care about than a mess on the floor. He and I and his sister cheerfully cleaned up and moved on.
Thanks for your concise illustration of this philosophy.
“I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.”
That’s all good and well, but I can’t get to that place with your outlook.
I must ask because I believe that your answer will explain a lot: What are your spiritual / religious beliefs? Do you have any?
In my opinion, a Christian would never adopt your “paradigm” / mantra as it contradicts our belief system. I appreciate what feefifoto said but, in my estimation / interpretation, what she expressed is consistent with but not exactly like your slogan. What she described is, for me, merely a system of prioritization: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” For me, that’s not the same as “life is empty and meaningless.”
The point is that life is empty and meaningless until you give it substance and meaning, so choose that substance and meaning according to what you desire. I don’t know all the ins and outs of Christianity, but I’m not sure I follow how this paradigm can’t exist in a person that has the Christianity paradigm. If you get a chance to explain, I would love to know.
Ah, as I suspected. (No, that’s not an indictment or criticism.) I will have to write a post about your paradigm from a Christian perspective. So thanks for the inspiration!
I think responding in a full post is a great idea, and I look forward to reading it. Just let me know when it’s up.
Hi Alex,
I agree with you that nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it. We are the ones who affix the meaning to anything. Reality just is….our thoughts and paradigms are what give it meaning.
Your premise reminds me of “the work” by Byron Katie. Her words are different but she basically says the same thing—that we assign the meaning and we have a choice of how we can think about things and situations.
While I like this….
“I’ve decided to take a zero-tolerance policy towards thoughts that aren’t being conducive to my happiness.”
I also value “contrast” and “intuition”. Those less than desirable thoughts that I sometimes have are usually telling me something of great value for my life…I wouldn’t just turn them off…..
I really enjoyed your article. Thank you!
Ah… finally someone blogs about a theory I’ve held for many years. Thanks for the article!
I think the abovementioned problems that Christians might have with this paradigm is that they believe that God has a plan for everything, no matter what we think. In essence- the idea that *we* decide the meaning of our life is contrary to their belief that *God* decides. So it would be hard for them to adopt this ‘me-based’ theory, because they are hung on a ‘God-based’ theory.
Good stuff. Keep up the posts!
- Jaden
http://www.undergroundunrest.com/blog
Thank you for the kind words guys, and I’m glad you are enjoying the blog.
Don’t worry, more is on the way, so come back soon. =)
Hah, brilliant! Perhaps being meaningless is to say that everything is okay, as it should be, right now. And so it is! Seems like you’re delving in non-duality, mate, am I right?
Cool, although I would have to say that life is meaning-less until we apply a meaning. But even that is because of the meaning I have attached to the word meaningless.
In love, light and abundance x x x
Lola Fayemi
Interesting philosophy Alex,
it’s like the story where a general burnt his ships so that his soldiers can fight all out.
I like this.
I love the zero tolerance policy. I think its a must to to weed out negativity.
Hey Alex, Still holding onto that Ipod…I really need to do a contest.
I thought you won it for you… You like how I sneakily had them engrave it? =)
Really, I still have yet to open it…lol…these days the only music I ever listen to is when I am driving. I don’t think my car is equipped to play MP3’s just yet.
Lol…too funny…I just opened it…got to love it…
Hey Alex!
Just checking out your blog tonight, and came across this post. It brought back great memories of the biggest AHA moment of my 3 days in the Landmark Forum. We spent hours on this one. I’m not sure if the one girl in our group was a plant, or if she really couldn’t grasp it – but….our moderator delivered this nugget of wisdom, and she completely came unglued.
“LIFE IS NOT EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS!!!” She exclaimed. “Right”, said the moderator. “Life is NOT empty and meaningless. BUT Life is empty and meaningless AND it’s empty and meaningless that it’s empty and meaningless.” Wow, she couldn’t let this nugget go for 3 days. On day 3, she finally “got it”, and brought in t-shirts for all the moderators to wear, and it was such a funny moment. The important thing is – And this is what she finally got – That this is not religious, and has nothing to do with G-d. It’s just that we all give our own meaning to things, and that meaning doesn’t automatically come along attached to the moment, but we assign our own meaning, to something that in its original form, had no meaning at all. So – everything we get is empty and meaningless – UNTIL we give it it’s meaning and purpose. OR until we give ourselves meaning and purpose. I haven’t had the opportunity to chew on this one lately, and the funny thing is, you reminded me of it at just the right time.
Today, I had a project I’d put my heart and soul into for four months fall apart at the very last moment. In that instant, it meant I had failed. It meant that the world was against me. It meant so many things – and now, after reading your blog, I just realized it didn’t mean any of those things at all. It meant nothing. It happened. Things happen. Some things work, some don’t. This didn’t. It was empty and meaningless, until I gave it meaning. Now, it just means I tried my best. And will continue to do so, regardless of the outcome.
thanks – I really needed that.
Debbi,
Thanks for stopping by. At the exact right time, because I’m doing the forum again tomorrow morning, and this just reminded me what a fun adventure the forum really is. I’m glad you got “nothing” out of this.
I have seen this article before. Interesting isn’t it.
You have good info on your site. Keep me posted of new info.
Thanks,
Cindy
A great post, this has given me a whole new way of trying to look at things. I cant remember the exact metamodel, but it strikes me as something in the NLP train of thought. We cant always control the external things that happen in our lives, but we can always control how we react to those things.
Life really is empty and meaningless, until you decide what you want to fill it up with.
Well said Dcrad.
I came across this post while googling “I Think Life Is Empty”. We are in the same boat!
My friend is really big into the Landmark Forum. We met last year around this time and over several months I observed he had sort of a serene manner about him that I found very easy. I said he was a real zen puppy. Eventually he started telling me about how the Forum changed his life and how it enabled him to resurrect his dead friendship with his best friend and how it enabled him to tell his parents he was HIV positive. All very nice and good. He was graduating from the Advanced Course and invited me to come to graduation night. I was moved by how euphoric and supportive everyone was of one another, but I was freaked out by how everyone seemed to applaud meaningless statements on cue, and by the hard sell at the end. I was really just there to find out what this Landmark thing was that was obviously making my friend tick.
Eventually he convinced me to take it at a time when I had decided to really focus on changing my job situation. He couldn’t explain how the Forum would effect that, but he tought the course would be very beneficial for me.
As the weeks before my Forum became days, I started to ask myself, “What did I sign up for?” I had no idea what this course was about other than some clever statements made in the intro session, which I had integrated into my life years ago. And yet everyone talked about the course as if it was an earth shattering experience.
Finally, a day or two before the course began, I said to my friend, “Why am I paying $550, taking a day off of work, and devoting my first free weekend in two years to this thing? What is it I’m buying? What is this third day epiphany or excercise?” My friend didn’t want to tell me. He thought it would ruin the surprise. I told him I really didn’t care and in fact I insisted. I was tired of all the hocus pocus mystery about this thing. I got that it was experiential. But I also got that all signs pointed toward it giving me an experience that I’d already had at other times in my life. So he let the cat out of the bag. The whole point of the Forum is that life is empty and meaningless.
To which I said, yeah, and? Tell me something I don’t know. This is not news to me. I’ve had truly existential experiences in my life that have put that lesson into sharp relief. But my friend strongly urged me to go.
So I went to day one. After about eight hours I finally said, “Why aren’t these people getting it? I can’t sit around for three days waiting for people to get it. They all want to go up to the microphone, have the instructor analyze their lives, and come out whole. Don’t they realize they can just sit in their chair and do that themselves? What do they think this instructor is going to tell them other than, “It’s up to you whether you want to be upset about your situation?” He doesn’t know them. What more could he tell them?
So I decided the only reason I was staying at that point was to make my friend happy and to avoid being rude. Since neither of those was a good reason for being there, I left.
My friend remained. She was skeptical like me, but by day three, she seemed like she’d drank the kool-aid. I insisted she tell me what the critical day three excercise was, and she told me it was that the instructor told everyone life was empty and meaningless. Apparently being locked up in a room for three days in uncomfortable chairs hearing the problems of the world echo in your head makes that statement earth shattering.
I’m really dying to know what the state of mind in the room is before that moment, because I don’t get why any of the Forum’s lessons are earth shattering or paradigm shifting. What has happened to these people in the previous two and a half days to not only make that statement change their entire outlook on life, but to start believing that only by doing the Forum can one have that experience? It sounds like a carny trick.
This was interesting. I am currently in a philosophy class and we’re on the verge of discussing this concept. Unfortunatley we always start out the new unit with a debate. I happened to be chosen for this debate and i have to argue for life being meaningless. I wondering if you have any hints or anything. I’m not sure where to begin really.
Thank you!
@Philosophy Student – Life in itself is meaningless. There is no inherent meaning to it. Then we humans come along, us meaning making machines, and we say “okay, life means this, this, or that”.
If you think of it this way, life is meaningless in itself, but we create a perceived meaning to it. Just like objects don’t really have a color, they just happen to obsorb a certain wavelength of light, which is then interpretted a certain way by our eyes, which leads us to create “that object is color X”.
Let me know how your debate goes!
Thanks so much! I appreciate it. I have a dead beat debate partner so you help is greatly appreciated!
If life is what we make it, that is WE as individuals, then it seems to me that life itself isn’t objective. Its purely subjective. We’re all just floating around in our life…some make it full, not meaningful. Meaningful means it makes it purposeful. And everything dies. People, ideas, beliefs, anything. So how can they be meaningful? The other people don’t fill their life, its empty. And if its empty it doesnt matter. So its true that its what you make it, but that means nothing to me, my life is empty because I don’t see the point in filling it with “meaningful” things. But does that make it useless, futile? I think thats the question we should ask.
Absolutely loved this article! I guess I found my ‘meaning’ in this meaningless life…it was in this very article.
Ur a superb philosopher!
I always believed life was empty and meaningless..and that we humans give meaning to it. It’s very true. Take a look at all the ephemeral joys we go through…they all die sooner or later…and then we find a new meaning to life and move on. Yes WE are the ones who find that meaning. If not, left alone life is empty.
Excellent post here!
Keshi.
@Keshi: Thanks for your comment, and I’m glad you got value out of this post. Welcome to the site.
I did the landmark forum a few years ago and really liked it. Recently something happened in my life where I remembered their mantra “life is empty and meaningless” Anyway it helped a lot and then I wanted to see what’s out there since I forgot a bunch of the LF things. Your site came up and it hit the mark. Thank you. Just reading it all over again made my day
I just found your blog and am very curious as to why someone people have to assign religion to everything they read. There is no religion to this philosophy pure and simple. Please keep religion out of this discussion. Religion is a personal thing.
Just saw this poem on a blog and thought is went very well with what you are saying. here is the source:
http://thedarleylama.wordpress.com/
Jun 25
Nothing
From nothing, I came.
From nothing, I am.
From nothing, I speak.
From nothing, I act.
Without history or reason,
belief or denial,
I am a clearing for all that is yearning to be.
I am a clearing for all possibility.
Thoughts will come and
thoughts can go.
But to nothing I return,
and from nothing I emerge.
For nothing is the space between
the Divine spark.
The rest between two notes.
Nothing asks for nothing
and gets nothing in return.
A pureness of reciprocity.
From nothing the wave rises
and to nothing the wave falls.
From calm to storm to calm again.
From nothing the cloud forms, lightning strikes and
rain falls.
Followed again by the clearing, static-free sky.
From nothing my purest heart speaks
and these words on this page came.
And though words fill up your head
and may move your heart and stir your soul,
these too, return like you,
to nothing.
So let us celebrate this nothingess.
So that this space and peace and rest
may arise
and dissolve,
from nothing.
To nothing.
Hello – I have experienced the landmark forum and would like to share my opinion. While their is nothing fundamentally wrong with the (mostly Buddhist and jungian) ideas presented in the forum; in fact much of it is quite helpful to people, they are a fundamentalist organization. Fundamentalism is never to be tolerated in any form. The ideas presented are done so using a strict pre-defined set of definitions and terms that are inflexible, and inscrutable to the practical study of psychology and philosophy. I belive that we have something for defining words, it’s called a dictionary. Why does landmark change the definition of words ? Why is landmark not able to work within the framework of science?
One of many problems actually because they clearly use brain washing techniques during their seminars…