{"product_id":"9781514491287","title":"Making Meaning:: Seeking the Most Meaningful Life","description":"Making  Meaning  concerns  how  to  live  your  life  to  make  maximum  impact.  It  does  this  by  being  the  first  book  ever  to  fully  develop  the  idea  of  meaning  (defined  as  “significant  impact”)    which  is  greatest  idea,  since  everything  has  it  in  some  way.  This  development  emphasizes  that values  or  ought's\/should's  provide  more  meaning  in  one's   life.  We  have  a  crying  need for  this  today  because  most  of  us  have  little  to  believe  in.   “Does  my  life  have  enough  meaning?”  is  a  life-or-death  question.  This  book  takes  a  common  sense  approach  to  answering  it.  The  author   describes  his  own  seeking  and  making  meaning  to  render  this  abstract  idea  more  concrete.         Making  Meaning  explores  the  following  eight  sources  of  meaning:   1)  relationships,  2)  com-  munity,  3)  dialogue,  4)  work,  5)  art,  6)  search  for  God,  7)  possessions  and  8) intangibles  or  nonphysical  realities.  The  last  source,   potentially  the  largest,   is  explained  and  argued  for.  We  have  another  crying  need  today  to  know  more  than  physical  things.          This  book  tries  to  satisfy  yet  another  crying  need  today:   the  objectivity  of  meaning.  This  gives  us  external  standards  to  judge  and  live  by.  Today's  widespread  subjective  view  of  meaning  allows  everyone  to  believe  whatever  they  want.  This  view  is  dangerously  chaotic  and  wrong.          Toward  the  end  Making  Meaning  tackles  its  major  negative  challenges:   meaninglessness,  nihilism  (the  view  that  nothing  matters  eventually)  and  extreme  relativism.               Finally,  this  book  defines  what  is  the  meaning  of  life  by  drawing  from  all  these  sources.  A  very  brief  survey  of  the  history  of  thinking  about  the  meaning  of  life  including  Socrates, Plato  and  Aristotle  concludes  this  book           Welcome  to  the  wonderful  new  field  of  meaningology!  About the  cover  image:             Making  Meaning  mostly  involves  drawing  from  its  many  sources  as  symbolized  by  the  many  good  things  in  nature,  including  the  heights of mountaintops  and  the  warm  light  of  the  sun.","brand":"Xlibris US","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137087291632,"sku":"9781514491287","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781514491287_p0.jpg?v=1763727915","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781514491287","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}