The meaning of life is not across the world

Written on June 1st, by the water.

A few weeks before I graduated college, one of my favorite professors delivered an impassioned monologue. “The meaning of life is not across the world,” he said to our small class like the star of a student production. “You won’t find yourself in Thailand unless you’ve found yourself here first. The meaning of life is not something you discover—it is something you create. You build the meaning of your own life with the people you love.”

A bit grandiose for a marketing professor, sure. But I’ve long lived for grandiosity. And he sounded so right. Despite literally being weeks away from living outside Chiang Mai for the summer (was this speech just for me, I wondered, unable to shake the adolescent thought) I tried with desperation to internalize his words.

The meaning of life is something you create.