Meaningful Living Across the Lifespan. Moses N. Ikiugu

      Common experiences found in every-day occupations are depicted as the medium through which meaning in life emerges. Through engagement in daily occupations and subsequent experiences in occupational participation, the individual constructs meaning in his/her life by: connecting to something bigger than him/herself; engaging in self-exploration and creativity; connecting to other people; having a sense of social responsibility; having a sense of efficacy, competence, and independence; having a sense of dignity; affirming his/her unique identity; perceiving the experiences as relevant to his/her developmental stage; negotiating change and adapting; transitioning through life; and having a sense of temporal and cultural belonging.

       Figure 2-1. Web of meaning through daily occupational performance.

      To be able to practice in a way that is consistent with the professional value of meaningfulness occupational therapists need to clearly and comprehensively define what makes occupations meaningful. Without this clarity it is difficult for them to play their proper role in helping people to counter the contemporary concern about meaninglessness. In the previous chapter, we suggested that a concept of meaningfulness may have emerged as part of a culturally dominant set of middle class individualistic values which are rarely challenged. Christiansen (2000, p. 99) for example discussed the concept of ‘personal projects’ or long term goals that people saw as defining them and towards which they strived. All other activities had to be consistent with such personal projects. Furthermore, such personal projects were linked to peoples’ social positions and stages in life. Thus, a young person in emerging adulthood would perhaps see establishing a career and personal position in the social world as critical personal long term goals. The youngster’s daily occupations would largely be directed towards those goals. Similarly, a person who is middle aged would see helping teenage children transition to responsible adulthood and preparing for retirement as important personal projects. An older person would perhaps prioritise passing on wisdom to younger generations, and perform daily occupations in a way that would be consistent with this life project. We are hereby suggesting that meaning is somewhat linked to these important ‘personal projects’ which depend on socially defined roles and one’s developmental stage.

      In this chapter, as a first step in broadening the investigation into the characteristics of meaningful occupations, we attempt to increase comprehension of what makes occupations meaningful to people. We do this by discussing how people have tended to construct meaning in their lives using daily occupations. In one small study, Ikiugu, Pollard, Cross, et al. (2012) explored the perspectives of working class writers in the UK on meaning-making through daily occupations. The sample of ‘worker-writers’ autobiographies which were analysed by the researchers were drawn from a network of writing workshops, oral and community history projects, and literacy groups from various parts of the UK. This network, the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (FWWCP), was formed in 1976, and its member groups produced publications over a 30 year period. As a whole the literature produced constituted a body of knowledge about life experiences of ordinary working class people (Morley & Worpole, 2009) and provided an opportunity to help us understand how ordinary working class people use what they do on a daily basis to construct meaningful lives (Lentin, 2002; Tatzer, van Nes & Jonsson, 2011). It formed a starting point in helping us understand how to help people in general structure their occupational performance in such a way that meaning in their lives is optimized.

      In their investigation, Ikiugu et al. (2012) found that the worker-writers made meaning in their lives through common experiences found in every-day occupations. Experiences that made them feel connected to something bigger than themselves were particularly important in this meaning-making endeavour (consistent with Frankl’s postulations as discussed earlier), as well as occupations that enabled individuals to persevere in occupational tasks irrespective of the barriers that they faced. The worker-writers’ perceptions of how they constructed meaning using daily occupations is illustrated in figure 2-1.

      As can be seen in figure 2-1, meaning in life could be visualized as a web that individuals spun throughout their lives. Unlike the web determined by an outside force such as the Norns or the sisters of fate in Norse or Greek mythology, the threads of this web were woven by the individuals for themselves. It consisted of the following: connection to something bigger than oneself; a sense of fulfilment through exploration and creativity; connection to other people, thus creating a feeling that one is not alone in the world; having a sense of social responsibility; efficacy/competence, and independence; a sense of dignity; affirmation of one’s identity as an individual; making one’s own life story; relevance of the experience to one’s developmental stage; ability to negotiate change and adapt; ability to have intimacy through occupation; ability to transition through life; and having a place in one’s cultural and temporal context that emerges from the medium of common-day experiences found in daily occupations in which individuals engage over their lifetimes.

Routes to meaning making

       Through common experiences found in every-day occupations

      Meaning was perceived to be a result of every day experiences emerging from daily occupational choices and performance. This finding was consistent with aspects of previous research on the relationship between occupation and meaningfulness (Christiansen, 1999; Lentin 2002; Matuska & Christiansen, 2008; Tatzer, van Nes & Jonsson, 2011). For De Certeau (1998, 1988), the common every day experiences that made life meaningful included simple things such as knowing the location of the baker’s shop, knowing the geography of the street in which one lived, or understanding family recipes learned from grandmother. Thus, the theme in many of the autobiographical writings was that everyday experiences were significant, because they underpinned the social fabric in which everyone in the community shared.

Through connection to something bigger than oneself

      Through common every-day experiences, many of the worker-writers felt a sense of connection to something bigger than themselves. For example, the occupation of writing and membership in the FWWCP, the organization through which they published their autobiographies, were a means of challenging the injustice within the status quo and attempting to serve a greater good. The FWWCP saw itself as a non-party based, independent, radical movement, to some extent at odds with dominant cultural perspectives, including those of other British left wing groups of the time (Morley & Worpole, 2009). The occupation of writing and membership to the FWWCP were a means of connecting personal life experiences to a larger cause. Worker-writing and the activities of the FWWCP consciously represented ordinary peoples’ experiences as alternative discourses to a mainstream set of narratives which excluded it or tended to ridicule it as mundane and banal.

By a sense of fulfilment through exploration and creativity

      The occupation of writing led to a sense of fulfilment for the worker-writers (Ikiugu et al., 2012), resulting from the exploration and creativity used in storytelling, and the subsequent sense of being recognized for this creative endeavour, through performance in a workshop reading, or for instance as symbolized by the book being placed on the shelves of a community bookshop. Writing from personal experiences also led to self-discovery and development of a kind of authenticity. An additional and significant element of fulfilment often arose from the process of making publications as a group and experiencing acknowledgment of these books in the community (Morley & Worpole, 2009).

By a sense of connection to others through occupation

      For many of the writers, occupations contributed to meaning in life because among other things they provided a sense of connection to others in the world and made personal experiences universal. This sense of universality was achieved by individuals contributing to a shared social life through every day occupations. Thus, the topic for many