searching for meaning

Sarah is single, 38 and confesses that all the things that once made life exciting now bore her to death. She's lost the plot!

"When I ask people why they’re doing what they’re doing," says Sarah, "some look at me as if I've just arrived from another planet. They cannot conceive of doing anything other than what they're doing. They do not question it. Their relationship or their work or their hobby or their faith is their life - as these things once were for me."

"I envy their certainty that what gives their life meaning now will continue giving it meaning," says Sarah. "I suppose I thought the same way ten years ago - but now, at 38, I'm floundering, wondering what it's all about, looking for a new direction."

"I suppose I'm at an age when the biological clock of single women like myself starts to tick madly, but that's not my problem. I don't hear any ticking."

"I don’t believe that marriage and children would give my life meaning," explains Sarah. "Except, of course, that in such a situation I’d be so frazzled that I wouldn’t have time to think about whether my life had meaning or not."

"I'm not looking to complicate my life - I'm looking to simplify it and derive pleasure from it."

"Because of the type of work I do I am often overwhelmed by lack of time to attend to anything else in my life," sighs Sarah. "Like most other people it's work eat sleep and that's it."

"I ask people why they’re doing what they’re doing in the hope that their answers can help me find direction, find a new meaning for my life."

The most common reply Sarah receives is pretty basic: "I work because if I don't my children go hungry, I can't pay the rent and I can't fill my tank with gas."

"When people refer to their work as a day at the salt mine, another round of jumping through hoops, or another day at whatever cliché they wish to use for what work has devolved to in their lives," says Sarah, "they are expressing a sense of powerlessness that I am suddenly feeling - but not exactly for the same reasons."

"I don't have hungry children, rent to pay or a car to maintain," explains Sarah "I live in the heart of the city and I own my own apartment - but I am essentially running on empty, burned out with the whole work eat sleep merry go round."

"I feel that there's something terribly wrong with a system that robs us of our humanity, our desire to be all that we can be," says Sarah. "Working 10 hours a day to survive is no way to live, especially when basic food and shelter is provided to us gratis by Nature."

"It’s not my job per se that bothers me," says Sarah, "it's the whole work ethic. The notion that we must jump through hoops, go that extra mile, do or die without questioning why and to actually identify ourselves by what we do."

"If we are not passionate about everything we do," explains Sarah, "our lives become meaningless - and that's where I am now. I've lost my passion for life. I've lost my raison d'etre. I'm well off compared with other people but I get no pleasure from life any more."

For women particularly, Sarah believes that the daily grind of taking care of our appearance, our families and our homes is a full-time job in itself. Many women are asking: "Haven't we got enough work to do even before we go out into the world and do our stuff at the salt mine?"

"How did we end up like this?"

Sarah, like a lot of women, is going through a crisis - not so much one of identity but one of meaning. By constantly asking herself and others the "why?" question, she hopes to get closer to finding a new meaning for her own life.

"I have trouble accepting that industrialized man is better off than primitive man," says Sarah. "I wonder at what stage in our civilization did we leave our caves or huts - and stop hunting or gathering our food - in order to go work for the Man."

"There’s nothing natural about working for dollars to buy things that Nature provides for us free, especially when the food we buy is processed and unpalatable and the homes we buy are only places we have time to sleep in - exhausted after a day's work."

"It doesn’t make sense does it?"

"I know that there are still pockets of social groups in the world today where people live blissfully as Nature intended them to do," says Sarah, "and I'm deeply concerned about what went wrong with the rest of us."

"I believe that civilization has taken away all that was good and natural in our lives."

"My friends haven't changed - I have - and I can't bear their company any more because they suddenly seem so vacuous. They talk about money, real estate and things. I'm not interested in that life any more."

"I don't even derive pleasure from movies, music or restaurants any more," sighs Sarah. "It's like I really have turned into an alien!"

"No, don't get me wrong," laughs Sarah. "I'm not planning on giving up civilization in order to live in a beach hut, eating fish from the sea and fruit from the trees. I'm as hooked as we all are on modern conveniences. I do feel, though, that life would definitely have more meaning for me if I could be more directly involved in sustaining myself."

The questioning period Sarah is going through appears to be vital for people who have a problem not so much with which door to open but what is the meaning of it all.

Already Sarah is discovering where her new direction may lie.

She has never worked on the land before, or even so much as grown some herbs in a pot at home, but she obviously needs a connection with the earth to give her life the meaning she needs.

When we start asking ourselves why we are doing what we are doing we have already taken a new direction. When what we do is seen as being meaningless, we are opening ourselves to a new direction that has meaning.

And a new direction giving our lives meaning is the most profound new direction of all.

"The prospect of finding a profound new direction out of all this questioning is heartening," sighs Sarah, "but there's no guarantee that there ever will be a light at the end of the tunnel. I suppose what I want is to go back to the certainty I once had - and the enjoyment of things that I once had - but that's not going to happen. Having lost it I can't go back."

"Yes, I'm definitely open to a new direction," says Sarah. "Life is not worth living without passion - and if I need a complete change of lifestyle in order to find whatever it is I need then I guess it's a matter of reaching that stage where I'm so fed up with everything that I'm prepared to throw caution to the wind and step into the unknown."