Here we begin an exploration of death and so the meaning of life.

Even if you have not made the Jump, you may question if the accumulation of stuff is the measure and meaning of life. But as I look about me I see many people act as if having the best things is the justification.

In this episode, I will end with a definition for the meaning of life, but to get there, I will explain how the story of who we are drives much of our behaviour. I will outline how it is in our families that we first develop a personal story, a story that is uniquely our own and so different from our siblings. I will show you why it is critical to explore this story and then accept it or reject it. For only then can we be an independent self-initiating adult.

It is our family story combined with the story from school that keeps us from taking charge of our lives and so making the all important shift from child to full adult. Being an adult or not has nothing to do with our body and everything to do with whether stand on our own feet or depend on a story.

Cutting to the chase, my view of the meaning of life is that we can die knowing that we have reached our full potential as a human being. This means by default not getting stuck at one of the development points along the way. The most critical being the Jump between teenager and adult – between being driven by them versus being governed by us.

In the next episode, I will talk about religion itself – how most of us cope with the terrible curse of being human, the knowledge of our own inevitable death.