I didn’t know I was searching for the meaning of life when I bought a ticket to Taiwan and flew around the world to teach English for six months.

I didn’t know I was searching six months later when my three-week China vacation turned into a four-month study abroad after camping out on the Great Wall.

I didn’t know I was searching when I flew back to Utah to begin my masters program in writing.

I didn’t know I was searching for the meaning of life all along until the day I found I had known it for years.

I already knew the meaning of life five years ago as I finished a 3-day 54-mile hike to the tip of the highest peak in Utah. The September afternoon was hot and muggy with occasional rain. My heavy pack had worn blisters into my skin covering sore, tired muscles. My knees complained with every labored step down the last steep switchbacks to the river. Reaching the river meant I still had two more miles to go.  Two miles to limp along and dream of taking off my pack and setting it down for good.

But in my heart I knew the meaning of life. I knew a simple trick that would transform a miserable experience and how to fill my heart with joy instead an awareness of the constant complaints sent to my brain from various parts of my worn-out body. I let my mind wander back to the early spring day Julie and I hiked through the snow.  Our trail skirted the edges of 200' tall cliffs which we sometimes approached and peered over.   Julie walked along the trail before me, swinging her arms, sometimes laughing as we talked or slipped on icy patches.  Her brown eyes sparkled and her white teeth flashed.  We reached the car refreshed rather than tired and in my heart, though not yet in my mind, I knew the meaning of life.

Now I limped down the steep trail to the river and took in the trees, rocks, and gray sky around me.  I imagined sharing the beautiful images with Julie, watching her eyes light up with appreciation and I suddenly didn't feel alone.  All the weariness and soreness of my muscles no longer mattered.  All that was swept away by the joy I had found in a memory and in imagination. It didn't matter that I didn't understand how it worked, it just did.

I already knew the meaning of life seven years ago as I drove my motorcycle home, late at night with half a dozen close friends, after a heavy tropical downpour in Chungli, Taiwan.  We had all met up at an Mtv—a shop where you can rent a video and a room to watch it in—and chose a beautiful, inspiring movie to watch.  It got our adrenaline pumping and left us with an awareness of how exciting and rewarding life can be.  The feeling hardly ebbed as I guided my small motorcycle through alleyways and down a now-deserted highway toward home in Lung Kang (Dragon Ridge).  When I stopped at the small lake a quarter mile from home, the adrenaline still ran thick and sweet through my veins. I felt alive and happy, but I didn’t understand why.

I parked my bike and took a slow lap around the lake, sitting down on the stone steps leading into the water, watching the full moon dance on the ripples when a furtive breeze struck the otherwise black surface. I let the feeling of being alive course through me, let my heart beat hard and sweet in my chest, let the satisfied smile creep from there to my face, and did my best to grasp what made me feel that way. I finally had to give up and go home, leaving the question for another day.

Enlightenment finally came as I sat in my car in my driveway after work and stared up through the windshield at the 11,557-foot snow-covered mountain that I had determined to climb and snowboard down as soon as the semester ended next week.

Classes had gone well and on the drive home, I came to realize just how much I would miss many of my students at the local college. I thought about how hard they had worked on their writing, how they had the courage to speak their mind, how I looked forward to each class, to seeing them every other day, about how much I respected them, and I wondered if they knew I loved them.

The insight came in that moment. In that moment I realized that it hardly mattered if my students loved me back because loving someone is even sweeter than being loved.   Perhaps this is why it is "more blessed to give than to receive."   Perhaps the meaning of life is not to have what we want (which explains most of our actions) but to feel the way we want to.

As this truth sank in, it showed me the common thread of purpose that has guided my entire life. Every mountain I have climbed, every jungle I have explored, every country I have moved to and come to know, every hobby and passion and person I have pursued, I have done it all for the simple reason that these things turn my life sweet. That sweetness makes living bearable and worthwhile.

The meaning of life is to find meaning in life, and any form of sweetness will do the job. Joy. Peace. Adventure. Love. Accomplishment. Service. Goodness. Any of these things serve as the meaning of life for as long as they can bring you joy, for as long as they possess the power to turn your days, your minutes, your life rich, colorful, abundant, and worthwhile. 

That's why laziness, apathy and fear serve as poor meanings of life.  Sleeping in provides you with a wonder short-term satisfaction.  Playing it safe and avoiding all risk saves you from trouble and reward all at the same time.  Choosing to escape life through quick-fix addictions will never lift you free of your inner wounds and needs.   All these are poor immitations of true meaning.

Seeking the meaning of life, developing your abilities to pursue and find it, takes courage and determination; but in the end, the only alternative is to merely survive, merely to endure as time passes listlessly by with no more real meaning than a television sit com where the characters never change. 

You only live once.  Please do not toss your one chance at meaning into the trash.   Do not choose to be small.  Choosing no lofty goals and taking no risks is the biggest risk of all.