Recently, I’ve spoken with people who have good, full lives yet long for more meaning and purpose.

This is natural. Our lives ebb and flow.

Still, I think there’s a nagging issue underneath. To illuminate the issue, I’ll draw from the research of Oliver Burkeman and Devon Price.

Price, a social psychologist, wrote the book, Laziness Does Not Exist. According to him:

The laziness lie is a belief system that says hard work is morally superior to relaxation and that people who aren't productive have less innate value than productive people.

It’s an unspoken yet commonly held set of beliefs and values. It affects how we work, how we set limits in our relationships, and our views on what life is supposed to be about.

The laziness lie is fueled by three core beliefs (all of which are untrue!)...

• Your worth is your productivity.

• You cannot trust your own feelings or limits.

• There's always more that you could be doing.

Price beautifully articulates the flaws in each of these beliefs.

You can read more in his book, but for now take a deep breath and trust that you’re worthy just as you are, it’s important to listen to your body’s limits, and doing more is not a pathway to happiness.

What a relief!

Still, our culture encourages us to work and strive and be more productive. No wonder it’s hard to find meaning and purpose!

Burkeman is a journalist who wrote the book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

Here’s what he found after hours and hours of research and experimentation: There’s no time management system that works; you have 4000 weeks in your finite, precious life; you can’t do it all, so focus on what matters most.

He writes:

Once you’re no longer burdened by an unrealistic definition of a life well spent, you're free to consider the possibility that many more things than you’d previously imagined might qualify as meaningful ways to use your finite time.

From this new perspective, it becomes possible to see that preparing nutritious meals for your children might matter as much as anything could ever matter, even if you won’t be winning any cooking awards, or that your novel’s worth writing if it moves or entertains a handful of your contemporaries, even though you know you’re no Tolstoy, or that virtually any career might be a worthwhile way to spend a working life, if it makes things slightly better for those it serves.

Let’s put these two research results together:

Beliefs from the laziness lie skew what you think is meaningful. When you let go of the lie (and the idea that you can find more time), you see meaning and purpose that exist in your ordinary daily life.

Walking your dog has meaning.

Dancing in the kitchen with your kids has meaning.

Weeding your garden has meaning.

Resting on the couch doing nothing has meaning.

Helping your neighbor has meaning.

It’s hard to ground ourselves in these truths when our society says differently, but we can do it together!

It’s communities just like this one that change the world.

We create a new way of doing and being.

Celebrate all the ways you find meaning and purpose in daily life!

You’re all making a difference. This difference doesn’t come from you being productive. It comes from you being real, present, and loving.