A picture says a thousand words
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it. ―Carl Jung
👥 Serves: 11-25 people, 2-10 people
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: 1 week
🥣 Ingredients: 12 images, 1 partner (optional if you prefer to write a description of the meaning of the images rather than explaining it to someone else), “10 Keys to Happier Living: A Practical Handbook for Happiness” book by Vanessa King (if you’re curious to find out more about it!)
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Accomplishments, Liberatory Learning, Meaning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Autonomy, Creativity, Flourishing, Inquiry, Ordinariness, Purpose, Reflection, Self-directed learning, Sense-making, Significance
A picture says a thousand words
📝 Description
A creative exercise to gain access to your meaning in life.
The following activity has been taken from Vanessa King’s book 10 Keys to Happier Living: A Practical Handbook for Happiness. The book advocates for 10 elements essential to happiness, summarised with the acronym GREAT DREAM (Giving, Relating, Exercising, Awareness, Trying Out, Direction, Resilience, Emotions, Acceptance, Meaning). It also provides important insights into the definition of “wellbeing” whereby wellbeing includes: “a sense of self-acceptance and worth; good relationships with others; feeling our life has meaning and purpose; being interested and engaged in much of what we do; using our potential and/or experiencing a sense of achievement.”
This activity focuses on the last of the 10 keys: meaning. According to King, “meaning has three different elements: feeling that we, and what we do, matter in some way; our life story and understanding of how the different parts of our life fit together; and having purpose – our overarching mission and aims for our life, from which we can develop goals.” Having meaning is core to your work as a changemaker, but it is easy to lose track of us in the midst of overwhelming pressures and never-ending to-do lists. With this activity, piloted by Dr Michael Steger, we invite you to use photography to access more creative and richer thoughts and feelings about your meaning.
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Important: We shared this recipe as part of our blog post “Wellbeing in the time of COVID-19” because it’s a creative activity to access your meaning in life. Naturally, take all needed precautions: for instance, if you decide to share your picture with someone, make sure to keep a distance of at least 1 metre between you and the other person.
This recipe has also been featured in our blog post “Transcending beyond immediate concerns” published on tbd* on 27 May 2020.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Gather pictures (1 week)
Over the next week take a maximum of twelve pictures that visually show what makes your life meaningful. These could be pictures of actual things, or people themselves, or of something that represents them – perhaps an object, souvenir or work of art: anything that is an important source of meaning for you.
Step 2 – Explore the pictures (30’)
At the end of the week download/print your twelve photos and either:
- Write a short description for each one of what it represents for you and how it adds meaning into your life. Or:
- Find a trusted friend or partner who’ll listen as you explain why you chose each picture and how it adds meaning to your life. Their role is to listen, not to judge, comment or add their opinion! How they interpret the picture doesn’t matter – it’s about what it means to you.
Step 3 – Rank the pictures (5’)
When you’ve reflected on each picture, put them in order of importance. Make a note of your ranking.
Step 4 – Reflect (10’)
What does this make you think about your purpose, priorities and goals?