Axioms

I heard the term “fundamental axiom” recently, in the context of understanding the truths of one’s life. This was perplexing to me because for one, axiom is admittingly not a used term in my own vocabulary and two, my natural response was to synonymize the term with “purpose” or “meaning”.

An axiom is a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. In math, it is as simple as 2 + 2 = 4. But what exactly does that mean in relation to a life or identity? It seems possible to have multiple axioms in our experience as humans that are constantly evolving, and if those axioms contradict, that can easily result in dissonance. Put otherwise, it can cause severe anxiety.

Cue the introspection that has flooded my brain as I am days away from aging another year. In these last 365 days, I have spent a lot of time questioning if the systems that I find myself in are serving my own fundamental truths and if they are not, understanding how I got here in the first place.

“Here” as in my physical location, career, and support systems. It has become clear to me that one of the main drivers in my decision-making process over time has been the goal to preserve optionality. With options, often comes security. As I have written in the past, security has been a priority for me in my personal and professional endeavors.

This last year has also revealed the origin of that need for security and the desire for it to come from an external source rather than from myself. In the process of unlearning that response (thank you therapy), my risk profile and decision-making framework has changed. While I have always understood my investment (or the time, money, and energy put into something), I have spent less time thinking about what the optimal return is and if I’m on the right path to getting there.

To get closer to uncovering that journey, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which is a beautiful story of following one’s dreams, trusting the universe, and listening to intuition. It is essentially a parable of fundamental axioms. One of the key themes in the text is a “universal language that is understood by everybody” and consists of “enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.”

To me, this translates as there is a global longing for connectedness and discovering our personal, fated paths that should be intentionally pursued if we listen to that gut feeling. To a lot of people, this idea is related to faith.

While this gave me solace, the nihilistic part of my brain must ask, is there any validity to that? Do we exist to follow some “destiny” and do people actually care or is this just another concept to make us feel better in a world that often causes more pain than happiness?

In the rabbit hole that is the Lex Fridman Podcast, I stumbled upon the “meaning crisis”, a term coined by Dr. John Vervaeke, a psychologist and cognitive scientist who conducted a lecture series that covers humanity’s search for meaning. To my surprise, the results show that it is a sense of connectedness that drives people. Specifically, the majority crave a connection to something larger than the self. The crisis part comes into play when in times of hardship, like in war or loss or political divide, the lack of sense of meaning can lead to an erosion in mental health.

As it turns out, I am an adequate example of the meaning crisis hence the recent quarter-life questioning that I am now writing about. However, through this last year, I have also met people in the right place at the right time. I have healed through some of the most random conversations, so much so that I find myself awakening to this world that could possibly exist as a current that we should dive into rather than be swept away by. 

What this means for me (and maybe you as the reader) is that for one, we’re not alone in our wish to find meaning in our lives. Secondly, it is important to make conscious decisions towards whatever personal journey we are on, and that process involves trusting in intuition and choosing environments that serve our goals and values.

Instead of preserving optionality, I will be measuring connectivity and impact as the return of the investment to pursue my own axioms. I challenge you to listen to the universal language that speaks to your intuition, discover meaning in your own pursuits, and leave a legacy in this life as you connect with others because they very well might be there for a reason.