Finding Meaning in the Unexpected: Underexplored Pathways to Discovering and Cultivating Meaning in Life
- DOI
- 10.2991/978-94-6463-096-1_5How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Meaning in life; synchronicity experiences; mindfulness; coherence; search for meaning
- Abstract
One of the central components of meaning in life involves the experience that life “makes sense” and represents a coherent whole. Yet, less is known about the ways through which individuals discover or find meaning in everyday life. Despite advances in our understanding of the creative pathway through which individuals find meaning in life, mainly through the field of meaning in work, and the attitudinal pathway, mainly through the exploration of meaning-making in the face of adversity, the experiential pathway remains largely underexplored and its potential components require further unpacking. This chapter aims at broadening the existing perspective regarding the ways in which individuals seek and derive meaning in their lives by considering the potential role of mindfulness and unexpected experiences in everyday life. Based on conceptual and empirical suggestions, these two rather underexamined gateways of the experiential pathway may have a unique contribution to make in better understanding how individuals may approach the question of meaning in life in the face of the unique challenges of the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world of our time.
- Copyright
- © 2022 The Author(s)
- Open Access
- Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Pninit Russo-Netzer PY - 2022 DA - 2022/12/27 TI - Finding Meaning in the Unexpected: Underexplored Pathways to Discovering and Cultivating Meaning in Life BT - Proceedings of the Meaning in Life International Conference 2022 - Cultivating, Promoting, and Enhancing Meaning in Life Across Cultures and Life Span (MIL 2022) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 57 EP - 68 SN - 2667-128X UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-096-1_5 DO - 10.2991/978-94-6463-096-1_5 ID - Russo-Netzer2022 ER -