Seasons and reasons...for eternity
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Original: 11/3/2006 2:44 PM
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WayneCoghlan


Friday, November 03, 2006

The Need for Significance

 

Our needs as people are really quite simple. Beyond air, water, food and warmth, our only real primal need is to find validation for our existence...or significance. In fact, if a person feels their purpose is valid, they will give up their life for a cause. All our activities are then to gain significance, protect what significance we have, or to hide from others and ourselves our lack of significance.

No person has ever died from a lack of sex...in fact when a person has a higher purpose in their life, they live willingly celibate. Money, power, prestige are all expressions of apparent significance. To be in a loving relationship we gain in our significance to others and they to us. A more mature person comes to realize that our attempts to gain signific- ance from others is futile as we can only be as significant as we are to ourselves...the rest is illusion.

Yet if we do not have any existence beyond our short mortal life, what then validates our being? To be truly significant we need to surrender our significance to a greater calling, a greater being! Christianity teaches us that we do not have the significance within us to approach that being. Rather, God grants us that significance through His grace.

-- Dr. Wayne Coghlan

source: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/9873.htm

concise and well put. but i have one question... how, in everyday life, do you apply that? how is that supposed to affect your work, your choices, your motivation?

hmph.

 Posted 11/3/2006 2:44 PM - 93 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment

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Thank you for your comments. The theory is a bit like social biology - it can explain a lot but doesn't give much detail. I have seen similar themes in other religions and philosophies and in psychology. From a psychological perspective, the theory can explain what does motivate humans to act in particular ways and the choices and directions they may take in life. Does the behaviour add to and support significance? From the anthropological perspective, the theory explains why we seek a spiritual connection with little tangible evidence to do so. A mature person understands their own motivation to find a more intentional and constructive path in life. A benevolent person seeks to understand the motivations of others in order to promote beneficial outcomes. A person adept at marketing uses others' motivations in order to better serve or exploit them. Why might one woman buy a name brand make-up and overlook the exact same product in a generic store brand?
Posted 5/9/2007 11:06 PM by WayneCoghlan - reply


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