Our sense of meaning, our life’s goal, is an individual thing. No one can choose it for us. Likewise, rational argument alone cannot answer that purpose.
Why did this happen to me? Why am I here? These questions have no rational answer. No psychiatrist or scientist can come up with the answer. We do not need to accept the meaningless or capriciousness of life, but finding these answers is a personal quest. We must accept the incapacity to recognize the ultimate meaning in rational terms.
Goaded by our own mortality, we must reach out. The quest of every human is essentially a spiritual one. We search for personal meaning outside ourselves. “If there was no God it would be necessary to invent him.” That assertion does not mean we must all believe in God. However, it does assume our sense of meaning bases itself on a spiritual inclination, a social interaction, not a rational one.
No person can guarantee another a wonderful and fantastic life. There is also no one who can guarantee death tomorrow. However, we each individually can choose to live as though we will overcome, that we will survive and persevere. This is an instinctual, emotional choice, not a rational one.
People and organizations that ignore the emotional aspect of their meaning do so at their own peril. Life is not a purely logical exercise. Without emotional attachment, there is no fire, no drive, no active quest, no spirit freed and no creativity.
There also may be no logic. In research of consciousness and rationality, scientists found that people who had suffered a calamity which severed the emotional center of their brain could no longer think logically. The question is, “If we are not deeply emotionally connected, are we connected at all?” The evidence suggests that our connection is only partial if we are not. The vital implications of this research are a recurring theme.
What do successful organizations do to nurture an emotional investment in their mission statements? Too often we make the mistake of dissuading emotion engagement. But if our Associates are not working from the heart, where are they working from?
 | Man’s Search for Meaning (4th Edition)[Revised & Updated] |