Meaningful Living Project: Orientation 2012

A Positive Global Vision of Healing and Flourishing Through Meaningful Living

The Most Important Question

• • • • What do you really want in life?

The magic question: If you were to be granted only one wish, what would that be? How do you know that one thing is really good for you?

On what basis you do you make that important choice?

A Sad Paradox

• • • • Pursing happiness but finding misery The American dream of success and happiness through hard work has turned into a nightmare for so many people Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley had everything on the outside but nothing but pain in the inside What might be the reasons for such tragedies ?

Rethinking & Reimaging Life

• • • • Why do we often invest our life in the wrong project?

Why the world is not enough?

It’s time to take stock of our life and re examine our assumptions and worldviews It’s time to ask tough questions: Who am I? What really matters? What does it mean to life a good life?

The Meaningful Living (M4L) Project

• • • • M4L provides a global vision and roadmap for meaningful living Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Travelled Based on positive psychology research time-proven wisdoms from religion, philosophy and literature

Learning Objectives

• • • • • Develop a deeper understanding of self and the human condition Learn how to develop mature interdependence Learn to live an authentic and fulfilling life in spite of constraints Learn how to navigate troubled waters Learn the wisdom of living with paradoxes

The Paradoxes of Human Nature

• • • • • • • Every virtue can be a vice, and vice versa Both good and evil Both growth-oriented and self-handicapping Both rational and irrational Both free and determined Both pleasure-seeking and self-sacrificial Full of self-contradictions

The Paradoxes of Life

• • • • The most pleasurable things are often most harmful The most beneficial experiences often come from hardship and suffering We don’t know how to live well until we confront death Less is more, loss is gain

The tragedies of Life

• • • • Striving for something only to find that there is nothing at the end of the rainbow Realize on our deathbed that we have been busy all the time but have never really lived Engaged in self-destructive behavior & changing positives into negatives Gain the whole world but lose our soul

A Global Vision of M4L

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Provide support for all people in their quest for a better life within their constraints Equip people with a meaning mindset so that they can see with clarity what really matters and how to live the good life in spite of the inevitable negatives Empower people to have the wisdom, courage and freedom to live authentically and responsibly Transform individuals and society through meaningful living

Who Needs M4L (continued)

5. Do you feel lonely and alienated?

6. Are you worried about change and the uncertainties of your future?

7. Are you afraid of death and dying?

8. Do you feel helpless and hopeless about your present predicament?

9. Do you have difficulty deciding what to do with your life?

10. Have you lost your passion for living?

How to Get Involved in the M4L Project

• • • • • • Participate in the Meaningful Living Group Contribute to The Meaningful Living Project page on Facebook Sign up for the Positive Living Newsletter on www.meaning.ca

Become a member of the International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) Take courses on Meaning-Therapy Volunteer for the Meaning Conference