Breaking Down 42

Taylor Gretz
05/14/2019

I believe that all that you accomplish or fail to accomplish in your life, your experiences, the
people in your life–all of this makes you who you are. If you look back at your life, you should be
able to say, “Wow, this has been a good life!”

Pondering the meaning of life is a difficult task. ​Author, speaker, and journalist, Emily ​Esfahani
Smith ​wanted to know what exactly a meaningful life consists of. So she started poring through
old and new social science findings on meaning. She also turned to thinkers and
novelists—among them Aristotle, Virginia Woolf, Viktor Frankl, the Buddha—and interviewed all
kinds of people—from a former drug dealer to a zookeeper to an astronaut—about their search
for meaning and where their sources of meaning lie. In the end, four themes came up again and
again, which inspired her to create the four pillars: Belonging, Purpose, Storytelling, and
Transcendence. I’d like to explain how these four pillars apply to me, personally.

Belonging
Belonging is having a relationship with others where you can feel like you’re valued for the
person you are and you can value people in the same way. As a person with intense social
anxiety, having the sense of belonging is a huge part that gives my life meaning. If I don't feel
welcomed or feel like I don't fit in, I become extremely uncomfortable and start to shut down.
Feeling like I don’t belong makes my life feel lonely because of this struggle and I lose that
important connection with the outside world. In my life I feel like I belong with my friends and
family. With my friends, I can be my weird, crazy self and feel no judgment. With my family, I
know they would do anything to help me and keep me safe.

Purpose
Purpose is the drive of being helpful and being useful to help impact the world. Having a sense
of purpose is different for a lot of people. A nurse might say that her/his purpose is helping sick
people. While a parent might say that their purpose is to raise their kids to become happy and
independent adults.

I don’t yet know what my purpose in life is. But what I do know is that the things I enjoy doing
and the people I surround myself with all give me the feeling of having a purpose. I have found
that I base my purpose on my accomplishments and the success I have in life. Things like
creating videos professionally. At the age of 17, this is a huge deal because I feel like I can
show and prove to people that teenagers can make a meaningful contribution to the community
and we aren't just irresponsible people.
Storytelling
Storytelling is the stories you tell yourself about yourself by creating a story that documents the
moments in your life. It allows you to have clarity in who you are and shows how you have lived.

The story I tell about myself is based on the things I am proud of. It’s the moments in my life that
give me that feeling that I have value. Even though I don't fully know my purpose, my own
storytelling helps me gain insight to what my purpose might be, In a sense, I feel like storytelling
gives me the power to have a purpose to prove that I have had a productive life and that my life
wasn't wasted away.

Transcendence
Transcendence is the rare moment where you get in “the zone” and your sense of self and the
concept of time fades away. ​ ​When you transcend you get outside of yourself. It‘s like you are
functioning at a higher level of consciousness. For me, t​his happens when I'm doing something I
enjoy. Whether it’s filmmaking or riding a bike. These things give me clarity and allow me to
focus on the little things and enable me to live in the moment without the worry of the outside
world.

In the end, all that you do, all that you are, and all that you tell about yourself and others are a
part of the framework that makes you who are. We give ourselves meaning by what we value.
What I do know is that I value being successful at anything I attempt to do. I believe those
experiences help you be your best self and perhaps one day it’ll help help me develop an
understanding of what the meaning of my life is.

References
Esfahani Smith, Emily: TED 2017. “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.” TED: Ideas Worth
Spreading, April 2017, ​https://www.ted.com/speakers/emily_esfahani_smith​.
(Note: Jessica I wrote this to show Taylor how to cite the person he was drawing his info from. I
pray I used the correct format. It’s the MLA 8 format)