Meaningfully Monogamous

How I stopped waiting to find purpose and made it myself.

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver

In my last piece, “Spiritually Promiscuous,” I discussed agnosticism—not as spiritual laziness but as reverent curiosity—as a willingness to sit in the not-knowing without immediately building a church around it. But just because I’m not subscribed to anyone’s divine worldview doesn’t mean I’m not hungry for meaning. We all are.

Meaning is like the Wi-Fi password at a party; everyone wants it, few know where to find it, and most people pretend they already have it.

For years, I thought meaning was something you stumbled into. I assumed if I followed the “right” steps, the universe would hand me a glowing orb labeled “Your Purpose.” It never did.

I started questioning the whole premise.

What if the meaning wasn’t something you find but something you choose? What if the point wasn’t to be handed a map but to realize no one else has one?

And yeah, there was grief in that.

Letting go of the idea that someone, somewhere, had it all figured out.

That there was a meaning out there just waiting for me to discover it, like a cosmic scavenger hunt prize.

But once I got past the existential vertigo... there was something else.

Relief.

It meant I didn’t have to wait anymore. I could start where I was, with what I had. I didn’t need to have found my purpose to live a meaningful life—I just needed to be aware.

I don’t know when I absorbed the idea that meaning was something out there—floating in the ether, waiting for me to be holy or broken enough to deserve it. But I did. Most of us do.

As a kid, meaning came prepackaged in religion. There was a plan, a purpose, a point. Your job was to believe hard enough to stay on the path and not ask too many follow-up questions. (Which, of course, I did. Constantly.)

Later, other voices took over—gurus, books, and “successful” people on podcasts. They didn’t always call it God, but it was the same story. If you align correctly, the universe will hand over your purpose like a velvet envelope from the divine.

And I tried. I really did. I kept waiting for that velvet envelope.

If I meditated enough, journaled enough, read enough, I’d be granted Meaning with a capital M—some explicit beautiful statement about why I’m here and what I’m supposed to do with my wild and precious life.

But here’s the thing about chasing meaning like that: it’s exhausting and disempowering.

It keeps you in a weird holding pattern—circling the runway, waiting for some external force to give you permission to land.

It took me a long time to realize that maybe that story, that meaning must be found or given to you, was the problem.

What if the whole premise was off?

What if meaning isn’t assigned... but built?

Once I let go of the idea that meaning had to be discovered—like buried treasure under a palm tree —I started noticing something strange.

Meaning was already happening.

Not capital-M Meaning. Not “life purpose” with a logo and a mission statement. Just little moments that felt meaningful, even if no one else would’ve labeled them as such.

Laughing with my kids over something silly.

Helping someone find language for something they’d always felt but never said aloud.

Writing something that felt profound, even if only five people read it.

None of those moments were dramatic. They didn’t come with a bang or a message from the Divine. But they carried weight. And that weight wasn’t given to them by someone else—it came from me.

That was the turning point: realizing that meaning is a muscle. The more you choose it, the stronger it gets.

And weirdly, life started feeling fuller after that.

Not because I had any more answers—I had fewer.

But I stopped waiting for cosmic confirmation that I was “on the right path” and asked myself, Does this matter to me? Does this feel right for me?

It’s not always glamorous. Sometimes, it looks like doing something kind with no reward. Sometimes it’s like letting go of something that once felt sacred. And sometimes, it’s as mundane as choosing to be fully present in a moment you would’ve otherwise scrolled past.

But once you start doing it, once you start treating meaning as something handmade, not mass-produced, it changes everything.

Because then, even the smallest moment can become sacred.

Not because someone or others said it is.

But because you decided it was.

There’s something liberating about no longer needing the universe to co-sign your every move.

For years, I’d second-guess everything, waiting for a sign. A dream. A sync.

And sure, sometimes that’s fun.

Sometimes, it feels magical. (We’ve all had those moments when a song lyric or license plate lines up with your existential crisis.)

But the dark side of always looking for divine confirmation is that you start to distrust yourself.

You give away your agency in the name of alignment. You stall real decisions, waiting for the spiritual equivalent of Google Maps to reroute you with a “yes, you are on the right path.”

I realized I wasn’t just seeking clarity—I was outsourcing responsibility.

I hoped some higher intelligence would make the tough calls for me so I wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt or risk of choosing poorly.

But life doesn’t work like that. At least not mine.

There’s no glowing orb. No spiritual Yelp review for every choice you make.

Just you.

Your gut.

Your experience.

Your best guess.

And for me? That’s enough.

No, it’s more than enough.

When I stopped needing a divine stamp of approval, I started noticing something: what feels aligned in my body, my life, and how I move through the world.

That kind of inner attunement doesn’t require a stamp of approval. It requires practice and listening to myself. And sometimes, it's just quieter than I expected. Less fireworks, more silence.

Not dramatic. Not divine. But human.

These days, I think of meaning less like a message and more like a mosaic.

It's not something you decode. It’s something you assemble.

Piece by piece. Moment by moment. Day by imperfect days.

It’s not about getting it “right.” It’s about deciding what matters to you.

These days, I’m meaningfully monogamous, not in a romantic sense, but in how I’ve stopped chasing someone else’s version of purpose and started being loyal to my own.

Because meaning, it turns out, is not what’s handed to you. It’s what you honor, what you protect. What you choose to give weight to, even when the world doesn’t validate with likes, shares, or signs from the sky.

For me, it’s things like presence, laughter, a conversation, being loving, and living without needing to explain everything.

No gods. No guarantees.

Just this life.

This day.

This moment.

And I know—some people might read that and think it sounds empty and directionless. Or even a little sad. But to me, it feels like freedom.

Something changes when you stop waiting for your life to be meaningful and treat it like it is.

You become the meaning-maker. The meaning-chooser. The one who gets to look at the raw material of your ordinary day and say: This matters. Because it matters to me.

That kind of self-chosen meaning?

It’s an inner revolution.

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📚 Book Recommendation

If you’ve outgrown belief systems like a pair of jeans you swore would always fit—Falling Upward by Richard Rohr might be your next read. It’s about growing into a deeper kind of meaning after certainty cracks. Think wisdom without the condescension.

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🌀 New here?

If you enjoy these weekly essays, you might like my ongoing fictional series, Versions of Me. It is a personal, time-traveling experiment in which Alex sits down with younger versions of himself and tries to make sense of the beliefs, defenses, and survival strategies he picked up along the way.

Each episode is introspective, a little raw, and a bit hopeful.

Start from the beginning, or jump in wherever it calls you.
[Read Versions of Me →Episode 1: The Invite]