Has Life Lost its Meaning?

I had no reason to think that today was going to be different than any other.

There was a blanket of snow on the ground, the sky was blue, and the sun was shining brightly.

It was great to get some decent weather for a change.

At first, I didn’t think it was unusual that she had come into the pool area fully clothed, even with her jacket and snow boots on.

Quite often a mom will come in and sit down while her young child changes clothes and then comes out for a swim.

She was thin, had a small frame, and had medium length reddish blonde hair.

She looked to be about 40 years old; so, the pieces all seemed to fit.

It only remained for the little person to come out from the dressing room.

But instead of removing her outerwear, she sat down on the left side of the middle bench.

She leaned against the armrest, and then pulled out her phone and stared at it as if she were trying to will it to ring.

She then put the phone away, bent her head, and used both hands to support it.

And that’s when the picture I thought I was seeing began to change.

When she lifted her head, I could see that she was agitated.

It was the first time I saw her face clearly.

Her nose and eyes were bloodshot and swollen.

I then realized that she had needed space and came here to calm down.

The first questions that came into my mind were why didn’t she go up to her apartment or outside? Why would she choose a public place such as the pool area?

I wasn’t trying to be nosey; in fact, I did my best to avoid looking at her.

However, when something unusual happens, you tend to ask questions.

I’ve got knee problems, so I do my jogging in the water.

Because of the way the pool floor drops off, I have to change my position every few minutes.

I had just changed, and as it turned out, I was facing the benches.

I stared at the red telephone on the wall, avoiding any eye contact or even looking in her direction; but she was on my peripheral radar.

The phone rang, so she pulled it out of her jacket and spoke to someone for a minute or two.

She put it back into her jacket, and, then sighing heavily, bent her head again.

She then lifted it and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

She moved from one end of the bench to the other several times.

It was obvious she was in severe distress.

I couldn’t bear to see someone in such a situation.

I hate to see anyone suffering.

I’m sure you’re like that too, so you understand what I mean.

I wanted to ask her if she needed help; if there was anything I could do.

But I didn’t want to disturb her.

I never know what to do in situations like that, do you?

You can’t be sure if they’ll appreciate your efforts or get angry because you’re invading their space.

This went on for several minutes, and I could see that her condition was going downhill.

I kept thinking that I should approach her, but I was worried that it might make things even worse.

All I could do was to change my position and look completely in another direction.

After a couple of minutes, I could hear the wooden bench scraping the floor.

I knew that she had gotten up and left.

My curiosity got the best of me, so I turned my head, and sure enough, she had gone.

I had to change position because my knee was hurting, and that’s when I saw her again.

She had moved to the small corridor on the right between the changing rooms.

She was sitting just behind the white column, on the ledge under the large window.

She had her head in her hands, and she was sobbing violently.

Her whole body was shaking.

I thought, “No matter what it is, at least I have to try to help her. If she doesn’t want my help, that’s ok, but at least I have to try.”

I started to move toward the steps to get out of the pool.

That’s when her telephone rang again.

I decided I would go to her as soon as she finished the call.

So, I positioned myself near the steps and grabbed the handrail.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket, spoke for a minute or two, then stood up and left the pool area.

When I finished my workout, I took my shower, and as I left the pool area, a lady came in.

Her head was bent down, but I could see that her face was grim.

I said “Hi,” but she didn’t respond.

She brushed past me even though I was the one that opened the door.

I figured she was either rude or that she was probably in a rush to get to the ladies’ washroom.

But, at the same time, I wondered why she didn’t use the washroom located near the party room at the front of the building.

It’s not that I spend my time thinking about things like that, but it was unusual behavior for this building.

I never made the connection.

I went upstairs, changed into my street clothes and headed back down to the lobby to meet my wife.

She had been out doing some errands, and she was coming back to pick me up to go out for some shopping and to have a meal outside.

On the way out, I could see that there was a police car sitting on the building’s driveway.

Then I glanced to the right and saw that there were at least 20 or 30 people in the party room.

The first thought I had was they were having a meeting or a lunch or something like that.

I was curious, so I asked the guy at the front desk, “Hey, do you know why there’s a cop on the driveway?”

He looked down and replied, “I really don’t know, I just signed in.”

More, unusual behavior, and again, I didn’t make the connection.

When my wife arrived, I hopped into the car, and we drove off.

The entire time the cop was sitting in his car typing something out and talking on the radio.

We came back about 3 hours later.

The green arrow I drew on the picture below points out where the garage is, and that’s where we headed.

As we were pulling in, I looked over to the left of the building, and there was a tow truck that had just hooked up a small black car and was heading out.

The black car was damaged in the back.

From what I could see, the metal was pointing upwards.

I couldn’t understand what had happened.

It looked as if a very large truck had hit it from the back, lifting the back end up.

As the tow truck pulled out, the cop left.

It just didn’t make sense.

You can see that the area is tight, and a large truck could barely fit in, let alone hit the car with enough force to do the damage I saw.

The only thing I could figure out was that a resident had been hit on the street while driving his car somewhere. He then drove his car here and called the towing company to pick it up.

I still didn’t make the connections, but I could feel something wasn’t right.

The next day, my wife and I were returning from a walk when we caught the same elevator as one of the residents my wife knew from her workouts in the building’s gym.

“Did you hear about what happened to Mrs. Hudson?”

We don’t know everyone in the building, but this one guy is the “go to” if you want to know anything that’s going on here.

He’s got a line on it all.

“Who’s Mrs. Hudson?” my wife asked.

“You know, the lady that’s always standing in front of the mailbox every day at exactly 2:30.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve seen her down in the garage several times. She seems nice, always says hello, always seems cheery. Didn’t know that’s what her name was. What happened?”

“Somehow, she got access to the roof. Jumped off. The equivalent of 35 floors. Seems she was very depressed”.

Suddenly, the pieces all fell together, and it all made sense.

The lady in the pool was the daughter.

One of four girls and a boy, as I later came to find out.

She had just heard.

She didn’t want to go up to the apartment just yet, and there were too many people outside.

Even though I left the pool area, she was still in the ladies dressing room, and that lady who came in as I was leaving was coming to get her.

The people in the party room were either witnesses or perhaps assisting the family or police in some way.

Or maybe they were the flies on an elephant’s carcass.

Whenever something like that happens, there always seem to be people that just want to hang around.

Nothing better to do.

The tow truck we saw was towing away the car she landed on.

Out of respect, I can’t tell you what floor they live on, but let’s just say that they were extremely comfortably well off. The “go to” guy I mentioned earlier told me that the husband is worth in the upper tens of millions, if not more.

Those two cars are worth something like $350,000 in total; enough to buy a decent house.

Both cars were there for several days afterward, and then I guess he moved out.

Continuing to live in the same apartment must have been too much for him to bear.

Hers, on the right, was there for a few days after that, and now it’s gone too.

It seems that I’m always being reminded about how painful it is when your life has lost meaning.

Many years ago, I found out the hard way, and I paid a heavy price.

I made many mistakes, and I lost my family.

I’ve been struggling to regain my Purpose ever since.

It may sound cliché, but life isn’t just about money.

I had $40 million by the time I was 37 years old.

And that was 26 years ago when a million bucks could buy a hell of a lot more than it can today.

Yes, you need money, and it does solve certain problems and make life physically comfortable.

And you can have a lot of fun with it too.

But too much of it can create other problems.

Especially if your only purpose is to make more of it.

The point is that neither money, power, nor toys give your life any real meaning.

I had everything any sane person could ever want.

But I didn’t have what I needed.

I didn’t have a purpose.

And a life without purpose is a life that has no meaning.

I fell off track.

It wasn’t intentional, but I hurt my wife and kids, and I’ve spent the last 23 years regretting that.

In the end, I walked away and left everything to them.

It was the only way I knew how to say sorry for what I did.

I’ve had three motorcycle accidents, including one that sliced my left kneecap off.

And I’ve been through broken legs, broken arms, and pleurisy (now that is painful).

I once crashed face-first into a wall.

But nothing comes close to the agony of a life that has no meaning.

Physical pain doesn’t approach mental pain in intensity.

It took me several years to recover from the loss of my family.

My health degraded and my immune system almost broke down completely.

As that was happening, I witnessed a revolution that overthrew a dictator.

It all began when a 24-year-old man drenched his body with gasoline and lit himself on fire to complain about being robbed of his life’s purpose.

The fire spread to neighboring countries and ignited several civil wars.

That’s a painful way to end your life, and it doesn’t kill you right away.

It took him two weeks to die.

But it was less painful than living an empty Life.

Soon after I contracted pleurisy and went right to the edge.

I almost let go.

But, many young victims of the wars, both men and women, were brought into the same hospital I was in.

And it was when I spoke to many of them that I finally understood my purpose.

I realized that despite our technological advances and 5,000 years of civilization, humans haven’t evolved.

If anything, we’ve gotten worse.

Life has gradually lost its meaning.

We’re locked in a vicious circle of pursuing self-interests, loss of trust, and revenge.

Instead of pulling together, we’re falling apart.

Things may look clean and modern on the outside, but on the inside, we care only about ourselves and our own self-interests.

As time goes on, we’ve become shallow and don’t want to know about it all.

Instead of thinking and finding solutions, we just want to hack our way through all of our problems.

We want to be more productive, but it’s all in the name of our own self-interests.

And, instead of helping, we’d just rather put up walls to keep the lesser people out.

And now AI threatens to destroy the economies of many developing countries (and here too).

The UN recently reported that the number of refugees has hit a record: 68.5 million people.

That’s more than the population of England or France.

How long do you think you can keep them out?

You are our hope.

Stand up and make a difference.

Contribute to change, go beyond your self-interests.

By the time I found my Purpose it was at a later stage in my life, almost too late to do anything about it.

I once had the power, but I didn’t use it properly.

Don’t make the same mistake.

You don’t always get a second chance in life.

And you don’t always get the time you need to do whatever it is you need to do.

I was young then, and I believed that I could find my way again.

I’m still struggling, and I’m still optimistic.

But the clock is ticking.

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why.”

Why were you born?

To take as much money and power as you can?

To eat, drink, raise a family, and then die?

Or to contribute to something greater than you?

If you don’t, what kind of world will you leave for your children?

When you go beyond thinking about your own needs, and think about others, you start to grow.

That’s when you’re on top of the pyramid (see here).

Finding and reaching your purpose takes time and effort.

It isn’t going to happen by accident; you have to make it happen.

You have to try to get it right the first time, and if not, minimize the damage when you fail, and then get back up.

You have to work at it steadily.

You can’t hack your way through it; you have to acquire the skills.

People are always looking for short cuts because they’re in a hurry.

If they took the time to learn how to do things the right way in the first place, they wouldn’t be in so much of a hurry to make up lost ground.

As Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

Skills such as:

-the ability to analyze and understand people’s motivations,

-how you yourself think,

-how to “read” peoples’ intentions,

-the science of systematic analysis, critical and first principles thinking, and

-problem-solving and decision-making.

There are a few more, but the point is that they don’t teach most of these at schools, you have to learn them on your own.

Most of us learn a bit about some of them, but we don’t execute methodically.

You have to satisfy both your physical and spiritual needs.

That’s when you reach the top of the pyramid and can begin the journey to becoming what you can be.

The trick is to be able to balance your life and achieve both, and for that, you need a plan.

You wouldn’t begin a journey to some far-off destination without a road map, would you?

You wouldn’t just take off without making sure you have the proper resources, right?

So why is it that most of us take our most important journey, Life, as it comes, working out what to do along the way through trial and error?

Every time I drive up to the building, I can’t help but glance over to the left and look to the top.

When I do, I think about her pain, how she suffered.

I find myself trying to believe that she would have fainted before the impact.

I think that after driving in several times and with time, I’ll become desensitized.

I probably won’t forget, but I won’t feel the pain as much.

I don’t know what I would have said, what could I have said?

That I understood her pain?

I feel other people’s pain, so strongly that tears will often come.

But this time, it’s not just that I felt it, I understood it, I had lived it.

I’m still living it.

I still wonder if I’m going to make it.

I have until the end of this year.

Time is running out.

Stand up and make a difference.

Be what you can be, show others the right road to take.

Don’t become desensitized.