Meaningfulness

Sometimes you recognise that everything is all right. There is a meaning and a purpose underlying the most trying of events and circumstances.

I guess it is easy to trust and have faith when you live in an affluent western culture, have more than enough food to eat, well paying work, a comfortable home and many luxuries. Funnily enough though, I have seen people in less comfortable surroundings in developing nations who have more trust and faith than some of us seem to.

Belief in something beyond our little selves seems to be the key. It doesn’t matter what faith you follow – if you even call it a faith – you may not. Science is just as valid a belief in my opinion. Seeing the scope of the universe in both macrocosmic and microscosmic scope can give one a sense of proportion.

I believe in free will but I do also believe there is some sort of master plan guiding us. Not a fixed, unalterable destiny by any means. I think the universe works in economical ways and nothing is wasted or superfluous in the larger scheme of things. We reap what we sow. Karma. I think there are rules and laws and principles at work that we can only barely grasp (and some we can’t even imagine).

My beliefs give me comfort. They form a way to cope with the seeming injustices of the world – the suffering of innocents. And I believe we must do all we can to ease that suffering wherever, and whenever, we can. Beliefs don’t breed complacency in my opinion – they should breed compassion. It would be so easy to say that people going through a rough time are just reaping what they have already sown. Perhaps they are, but I still think we need to act compassionately and help them where we can. Sometimes it is difficult to know when we are genuinely helping though, and when we are ‘rescuing’.

Life seems a strange business to me sometimes. I can only see my tiny part of the jigsaw and it makes no sense on its own. One day I hope to have an overview of the whole picture.