To wonder too openly or intensely about the meaning of life can seem a peculiar, ill-fated and faintly ridiculous pastime. It can seem like a topic on which ordinary mortals cannot make much progress. In truth, it is for all of us to wonder about, define and work towards a more meaningful existence. This book presents a range of areas in which we might seek the meaning of life, including love, family, friendship, work, self-knowledge and nature. We learn why certain things feel meaningful while others don't, and consider how we might introduce more meaning into our activities.
The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives.
We believe that the journey to finding fulfilment begins with self-knowledge. It is only when we have a sense of who we really are that we can make reliable decisions, particularly around love and work.
Sadly, tools and techniques for developing self-knowledge and finding fulfilment are hard to find 鈥� they鈥檙e not taught in schools, in universities, or in workplaces. Too many of us go through life without ever really understanding what鈥檚 going on in the recesses of our minds.
That鈥檚 why we created The School of Life; a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives - as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours. We do this through films, workshops, books and gifts - as well as through a warm and supportive community.
I don't think I've ever highlighted so many passages from a single short book before. It's not the best book I've read, but it might actually be the most me book I've read.
This is a collection of snippets of writing on a variety of topics, musing on the meaning of life, just like The School of Life's content in other media like YouTube videos and blog posts. The vague and impersonal voice makes sweeping generalizations about what kinds of insecurities you, the reader, must have faced in your life. In some cases, the book just lets the dilemmas sit there for you to contemplate. At other times, it makes confident pronouncements about how things are -- not that everything is fine, only that everything... is. It just is.
It sounds totally inane, and probably to some people, it is. But the last page (what would normally be an author's bio) states that The School of Life's titles "are designed to entertain, educate, console, and transform," and personally, I think they've nailed it.
This book, in its own words "builds bridges to people we might otherwise have dismissed as unfeasibly strange or unsympathetic, cuts through to the common core of experience. By selection and emphasis, reveals the important things we share. It shows us where to look."
In the pandemic, a lot of what brought us joy may seem to have been drained of meaning. This book delves into love, family, religion, books, culture and homes and how each of these bring meaning into our lives. The language is beautiful but also simple and precise.
Very quotable, this book brings the reader a lot of hope and realistic optimism. Something I'll definitely come back to.
Woah, I love this book so much it is humanist perspective on what is meaning of life, shows sources and obstacle to meaning of life
Certain paragraphs which are interesting
The question of what makes life meaningful has to be answered personally, even if our conclusions are marked by no particular idiosyncrasy. Others cannot be relied upon to determine what will be meaningful to us. What we call 鈥榗rises of meaning鈥� are generally moments when someone else鈥檚 鈥� perhaps very well-intentioned 鈥� interpretation of what might be meaningful to us runs up against a growing realisation of our divergent tastes and interests.
A meaningful life is bound up with the long term. Projects, relationships, interests and commitments will build up cumulatively. Meaningful activities leave something behind, even when the emotions that once propelled us into them have passed.
SOURCES OF MEANING
LOVE
Aware of our lover鈥檚 qualities, we may allow ourselves some moments of pure rapture and undiluted enthusiasm. The excitement of love stands in contrast with our normal disappointments and scepticism about others; spotting what is wrong with a person is a familiar, quickly completed and painfully unrewarding game. Love gives us the energy to construct and hold on to the very best story about someone. We are returned to a primal gratitude. We are thrilled by apparently minor details: that they have called us; that they are wearing a particular pullover; that they lean their head on their hand in a certain way; that they have a tiny scar over their left index finger or a habit of slightly mispronouncing a word鈥�. It isn鈥檛 usual to take this kind of care over a fellow creature, to notice so many tiny, touching, accomplished and poignant things in another. This is what parents, artists or a God might do. We can鈥檛 necessarily continue in this vein forever, and the rapture may not be entirely sane, but it is a hugely redemptive pastime 鈥� and a kind of art all of its own 鈥� to give ourselves over to properly appreciating the real complexity, beauty and virtue of another human being.
FAMILY Nevertheless, we have to admit that the idea of bias towards relatives possesses 鈥� in the emotional as opposed to the professional sense 鈥� a reassuring and attractive side as well. What鈥檚 more, we have all already been the beneficiaries of the starkest, grossest nepotism. We wouldn鈥檛 have got here without it. That鈥檚 because when we were born, despite the millions of other children in the world, irrespective of our merits (we didn鈥檛 really have any), our parents and wider family made the decision to take care of us and to devote huge amounts of time, love and money to our well-being. This was not because we had done anything to deserve it 鈥� at that time, we were barely capable of holding a spoon, let alone saying hello 鈥� but simply because we were related to them
Nepotism is what ensures that a series of tantrums will be forgiven; that unpleasant traits of character will be overlooked; that we鈥檒l be supported as we rant and rage in the small hours; that parents will forgive children who have not been especially good 鈥� and that children with somewhat disappointing parents will still, despite everything, show up for the holidays.
Work What makes work authentic is not a particular kind of task; it has nothing to do with making pots or being a carpenter (jobs often superficially associated with the idea of authenticity). What makes work authentic is the deeply individual fit between the nature of our role and our own aptitudes and sources of pleasure. One of the benefits of having identified authentic work is that we will substantially be freed from envy. There will always be someone doing a job that pays better, that has higher public status or more glamorous fringe benefits. But, we stand to realise, there is no point yearning for such a role, because it would not fit what we know of the distinctive timbre of our own character.
FRIENDSHIP
Remembering what it was like not to be who we are now is vital to our growth and integrity. The best professors remain friends with their past. They remember what it was like not to know about their special topic, and so don鈥檛 talk over the heads of their students. The best bosses are in touch with their own experience of starting out as a lowly employee. The best politicians clearly recall periods in their lives when they held very different views to the ones they have now formulated, which allows them to persuade and empathise with hostile constituencies. Good parents keep in touch with the feelings of injustice and sensitivity they had in early childhood. Kindly wealthy people remember what it was like not to dare to walk into a costly food shop. We are always better long-term lovers if we have an avenue of loyalty back to who we were when we first met our beloveds and were at an apogee of gratitude and modesty.
CULTURE Creating a home is frequently such a demanding process because it requires us to find our way to objects that can correctly convey our identities. We may have to go to enormous efforts to track down what we deem to be the 鈥榬ight鈥� objects for particular functions, rejecting hundreds of alternatives that would in a material sense be perfectly serviceable, in the name of those we believe can faithfully communicate the right messages about who we are. We become fussy because objects are, in their own ways, all hugely eloquent. Two chairs that perform much the same physical role can articulate entirely different visions of life.
MUSIC To understand why, we need to focus on a peculiar but crucial fact about ourselves. We are highly emotional beings, but not all of our emotions make their way to the front of our conscious attention when they need to. They are there, but only in a latent, muted, undeveloped way. There is too much noise both externally and internally: we are under pressure at work; there鈥檚 a lot to be done at home; the news is on, we鈥檙e catching up with friends.
This is why music matters: it offers amplification and encouragement. Specific pieces of music give strength and support to valuable but tentative emotional dispositions. A euphoric song amplifies the faint but ecstatic feeling that we could love everyone and find true delight in being alive. Day to day, these feelings exist, but are buried by the pressure to be limited, cautious and reserved. Now the song pushes them forward and gives them confidence; it provides the space in which they can grow and, given this encouragement, we can accord them a bigger place in our lives.
BOOKS The great writers build bridges to people we might otherwise have dismissed as unfeasibly strange or unsympathetic. They cut through to the common core of experience. By selection and emphasis, they reveal the important things we share. They show us where to look. They also help us to feel. Often we want to be good, we want to care, we want to feel warmly and tenderly, but can鈥檛. It seems there is no suitable receptacle in our ordinary lives into which our emotions can vent themselves. Our relationships are too compromised and fraught. It can feel too risky to be very nice to someone who might not reciprocate. So we don鈥檛 do much feeling; we freeze over. But then, in the pages of a story, we meet someone. Perhaps she is very beautiful, tender, sensitive, young and dying; we weep for her and all the cruelty and injustice of the world. And we come away, not devastated, but refreshed. Our emotional muscles have been exercised and their strength rendered newly available for our lives.
TRAVEL Travel should not be allowed to escape the underlying seriousness of the area of life with which it deals. We should aim for locations in the outer world that can push us towards the places we need to go to within.
OBSTACLE TO MEANING
Our meaningful moments threaten to be like beautiful squares in a foreign city that we stumble into at night, but can never find our way back to in the light of day. We recognise their value without knowing how to rediscover them. We do not interpret them as the threads of a tapestry of meaning that we need to discover and hold on to across the labyrinth of our lives. We continue to encounter meaning a little too much by chance. We forage rather than systematically harvest.
But, haunted by the fear of being abnormal, we can end up following few of our authentic inclinations. The pity is that we probably take our cue about what is normal from a specific, and not particularly representative, group of people
We are highly attuned to the notion that being selfish is one of the worst character traits we might possess, a way of behaving associated with greed, entitlement and cruelty. And yet some of the reasons we fail to have the lives we should springs from an excess of the opposite trait: an overweening modesty; an over-hasty deference to the wishes of others; a dangerous and counter-productive lack of selfishness
We are at risk because we fail to distinguish between good and bad versions of selfishness. The good, desirable kind involves the courage to give priority to ourselves and our concerns at particular points; the confidence to be forthright about our needs, not in order to harm or conclusively reject other people, but in order to serve them in a deeper, more sustained and committed way over the long term
The trick is to become better ambassadors of our intentions, learning persuasively to convey to those around us that we are not lazy or callous, but will simply better serve their needs by not doing the expected things for a while. We avoid becoming a nuisance to those around us by what is only ever superficially a good idea: always putting other people first.
The trick is to become better ambassadors of our intentions, learning persuasively to convey to those around us that we are not lazy or callous, but will simply better serve their needs by not doing the expected things for a while. We avoid becoming a nuisance to those around us by what is only ever superficially a good idea: always putting other people first.
It is not a philosophical book talking about the eternal meaning of the universe, it is a practical book, it is about having a fulfilled life with the sources of meaning around you, I think what the writer was trying to imply is that in order to feel fulfilled in this world is to feel less lonely. Having a family who can accept you despite your failures, to be around with friends who can connect with you at a deeper level, who helps us to know and befriend with our deeper self.
Another source of fulfillment is by using the material sources to express what is inside you, as the writer mentions 鈥淚t is not enough to know who we are in our own minds; we need something more tangible, material and sensuous to pin down the diverse and intermittent aspects of our identities鈥�, by designing our houses to meet our needs inside, listening to a music that brings out our ignored deep emotions, styling our clothes who gives a cue about our core.
I picked up this book because I hugely admire Alain de Bottom and The School of Life initiative. I am also at a stage in my life where I have been contemplating a lot about the meaning of life, or the lack of it. I don't know how I found this book, but I am glad I did.
It's not a book that is trying to impose a specific way or methods or rules to find the meaning of life. Instead, here we get to explore selected avaneues where meaning could be found. Life has as much meaning as we would attribute to it.
The book is divided into two main parts - Sources of Meaning, and Obstacles to Meaning. The first part forms the bigger chunk of this small book. It discusses various aspects of life that could lend meaning, like love, family, work, friendship, etc. In the second part, it talks about features that could stop one from realizing that meaning. I wasn't very happy with the superficial treatment of the second part. It felt like someone had reached the end of an "assignment" and was in a hurry to finish the book.
The brevity of the book was both its positive and the negative. I personally didn't want a longwinded exploration of the topic, but only pointers on how to structure my own thoughts on the meaning of life. And in that regard, it was a good read. The first part of the book that talked about the sources of meaning, was an obvious list of important aspects of life. But the way the author discusses them are refreshing and welcome.
My favorite thing about the book is how the author is able to give examples which were so relatable. They may not be the exact situation in our lives, but they sounded like a thought or an instance that I might have imagined before. In that way, I felt like the author knew my mind very well.
This is one of those books that I will probably re-read after some time. Because of its short length, I read it pretty quickly and that means I probably didn't absorb it that well.
Definitely one of the best The School of Life books! Beautifully and realistically-written with its unique tone of voice, the book taught us that life has more than one meaning and almost every aspect of our lives can be the reason to wake up every day.
The best part of this book was definitely the way it described the meaning of each aspect of our lives that I鈥檝e never realized before. The life aspect that sounds usual and ordinary like work, culture, friendship, love, or even philosophy could be written as something that held a deeper meaning in our lives.
Not to mention that this book offered some aesthetic references to some paintings and contemporary art in each chapter to enhance the meaning of each life aspect. This book will be more comprehensive if Spirituality is being included to be one of the aspect that gives meaning to our lives. Reagrdless, this book was totally worth to read at least once in a lifetime!
Read this if: You鈥檙e having existential crisis and/or going through a quarter life crisis.
It contained many different approaches to find the meaning of life. Family, Love, Friendship, but also Nature and Philosophy, for instance. Altogether, it was an interesting experience to have set those in the context of the meaning of life. However, most of the content is elaborating ideas that you are already (kind of) aware of. This book rather reminds you of certain aspects regarding these topics. It is, therefore, a general and superficial read. I believe that many aspects could have been covered more in depths and I had hoped that there had been more external sources, such as philosophical quotes.
Nevertheless, it was an enriching reading experience that is in line with the other books by The School of Life, which I have read in the past weeks.
I regularly go through existential crises where I question everything in my life, including the things, people, and activities that bring me the most stability (although not all at once, thank god). I suddenly become unsure of the meaning and value they bring, and meaning is what tends to get me out of bed.
This tiny 鈥攂ut mighty鈥� book allowed me to let out a big sigh of relief for two reasons:
1) meaning is complex and it would be naive to hope to figure it out once and for all; 2) if such books are written it is because finding meaning is, indeed, a mighty task for us all.
Oh, and of course, the writing is pure delight.
I highly recommend this to every living thing lucky enough to be dotted with a conscience!
Finding meaning in the normal. A book that aims to show normal areas of our lives but gives you a deep appreciation of their value from movies, food to friends, family and jobs. Jobs being an area we create a garden in the wilderness of the world - feeling we made a difference in our area, bringing some order in our little place to help others. Family - love us simply for existing - not in a constant battle for acceptance - the cleaner is valued like the ceo sibling, also an area which we meet and connect over generations - a serious lawyer helping his niece do a tea party or grandma and granddaughter connecting over their dislike for pumpkin. Yet also the ordinary like movies or books that gives us a simple story within a messy world, we don鈥檛 need to always think in shades of grey morality, we can abandon our duty of sympathy in society and cheer against an evil villain and revel in his defeat. Overall an uplifting read that encourages you to examine and remember what you find value in and encourages you to make the conscious effort to pursue them because often we let it pass by without realising it.