Lily 0:00

And what might be with my mind? Why don't I feel like I've find my craft net? Or why don't my keynote feel like they got my meaning? And maybe you're asking the wrong question. And not after we're exploring what mean after why too many people to find it. And why the end to my feelings covering crackness and what to do with any life every day?

Chris 0:30

Welcome to the Gen XD Exchange. I'm Chris Perkins, Gen X parent, now 50 something empty next up.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

And I'm Melita Kind, Gen Z career explorer. We spoke and date on career choices, work, and life in general.

Chris 0:44

So whether you're a Gen X parent trying to figure out midlife challenges.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Or a Gen Z young professional or student figuring out adulthood, you're in the right place.

Lily 0:54

So, Dad, that sounds very much like a Gen X thing for the most part, and a you thing in particular.

Chris 1:00

And you'd be right, it is something I've been reading a lot about recently because it comes up so frequently in coaching conversations I'm having. But the more I've read about meaning, the more I've realized that the question both our generations are asking are almost identical. So you're asking, what am I supposed to do with my life? My generation is asking, What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? Yeah. So we have different starting points, but we're asking the same question.

Lily 1:30

Yeah, between me and my friends, even there's a bit of variance. We're both asking those same questions, but for some of them who have maybe already found the career that they're going to progress through and already feel quite settled, like they feel like they've done the thing you're supposed to do in your early 20s, they're already asking, What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? Because you know, they've done the supposedly really hard thing that everyone needs to get done at this stage. And then for the rest of us, we're asking the what am I supposed to do with my life thing because we've not quite checked that off the list yet.

Chris 2:02

Not figured it out. But for the ones that have, unfortunately, they are gonna experience some upsets along the way. You know, and we talked about life quakes in the life transition episode. Stuff is gonna happen. What you think is your is certainly not gonna be a career for life, but what you think might be a a career direction could get disrupted by AI or something changes and you have to move in a different direction, and we need a way of kind of figuring out what next.

Lily 2:30

When we're talking about meaning, what exactly do you mean?

Chris 2:33

The best explanation I've seen is from Arthur Brooks, who talks about meaning being a combination of three things, which are coherence. So does your life hang together and make some kind of sense? Purpose, do you have a direction to move in? And significance, the sense that your life has some worth to others, not just you. And that one in particular is a big clue about where we find meaning, because significance is about whether your life matters to other people. So you know how mum's favorite film is It's a Wonderful Life?

Lily 3:12

Yes.

Chris 3:12

That's all about this. So George Bailey, the main character, is shown how important he was to various people through numerous small acts that had a big impact. And that's a way we can find more meaning, which we'll come back to. Does that help explain it a bit?

Lily 3:30

Yes, it does. So now we can see all the different kind of components of what we're talking about when we're talking about meaning.

Chris 3:36

Yeah, yeah. I think meaning and direction and purpose are all connected. So purpose is having something you're working towards, so you can think of it like a compass bearing. You know that you might want to head north, but you don't have a specific destination in mind, but you know what you want to move towards, and direction is whether you feel you're making progress towards that. So you know when you've lost direction, you've gone a bit off track, but we know where we're trying to get to. And meaning is about the whole journey. So does it feel worthwhile? Are you enjoying who you're traveling with? And it can also be about the small moments that happen along the way, and I think that's the bit that a lot of people don't pay attention to.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, definitely.

Chris 4:20

So most people think meaning means finding your purpose, and I think that's where they get stuck. Do you think your generation feels pressure to find their thing? You said some some people feel that they have, but other friends maybe haven't. But do they feel a pressure that they're supposed to have figured it out?

Lily 4:38

For the most part, yes. I think there's a lot of pressure, all the stuff we talked about for social media, parents, tradition, cultural norms. So for people that haven't found their thing, which is most of us I would argue, uh, it can feel a bit daunting and like you've, you know, got to work towards it by a certain time. It's like if you don't have your career figured out by the time you're 25, like it's it's done. And the idea about getting sucked out of the little moments along the way is definitely a big thing. I was actually thinking about this last night, which is quite funny about how we talk about being present and trying to live in the present moment a lot, but most people are totally stuck in the past or the future. I think for my generation, this whole whole idea about finding our thing and thinking about, you know, when is my thing gonna pop up in front front of me, when is it gonna magically appear? That kind of keeps us lodged in the future rather than in the present, and then we're not able to enjoy all these little moments that happen along the way.

Chris 5:40

Yeah, which we'll come on to to talk about. What you're asking is the same for my generation. So sometimes people thought they had found their thing, and that career does them for 20 years or so, and then they say actually, no, this isn't it, you know, there must be something else. But I've never been a believer in the idea that you have to find your one true purpose, your true calling.

Lily 6:03

Yeah.

Chris 6:04

Because you're right, that is like trying to find a a unicorn and you can go mad searching for it and actually miss out on a lot of really good, meaningful stuff along the way because you dismiss it as not your true purpose. But how will you ever know? You can't you can't compare one thing that you think is your thing to something else that comes along because you can't ever have a kind of control experiment. No. So here's a quick test for you on that front. How many lifetimes worth of living do you think you have inside you?

Lily 6:37

Oh, um, like, I don't know, five or something? Is that right.

Chris 6:42

Yeah, that's that's pretty common. Yeah, okay. That question comes from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, who run the Stanford Life Design Lab, and they've asked thousands of people that question, and answers range from two or three to thousands. But the average is seven.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Okay, that's good.

Chris 7:02

So if we have, on average, seven lifetimes worth of living inside us, how can there be just one thing that you are supposed to do?

Lily 7:11

Yeah. It's like the fig tree analogy from Sylvia Plath, when she talks about sees she sees all these different fig trees extending out in front of her, and each one is like a mother and with children, an artist, and this and this. So her fig tree probably had a lot more on it than five, so maybe I need to up the game. Yeah.

Chris 7:31

And there's another idea on this from Jim Collins, whose book I've just read, which is called What to Make of a Life, which is really good. And he says instead of thinking you have to find the one big thing that you're supposed to do with your life, like who says you're supposed to do that, you should find a one big thing to focus on for now. So something you enjoy and can really get into. But if another big thing comes along and you want to try it, then go for it.

Lily 8:00

Mm-hmm. We always talk about that, like trying as much new stuff as you can. It's that same idea, I guess, isn't it?

Chris 8:06

Yeah, exactly right.

Lily 8:08

And just finding what fulfills you in the morning.

Chris 8:10

Yeah. And to go back to Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, they say that for people your age, your only job in your twenties is to try lots of stuff to give your 29-year-old self lots of options to choose from.

Lily 8:24

Mm-hmm. And that's actually interesting because if we think back to what when we had Charlie Rogers on and he was talking to us about his book and his idea about life design, then it's interesting to think about how you can combine your experiences and interests in unique ways to find a one big thing. Okay, so I might not have a sense of purpose yet, like the direction I want to go in and what I'm aiming for, but I can enjoy the journey that I'm on and then find the meaning along the way to eventually land on a purpose and direction. Yeah.

Chris 8:58

And you can still live purposefully if you think I'm doing this to find out if this is something I enjoy that I might want to pursue more of. So basically, instead of thinking you have to discover your purpose like it's this buried treasure out there somewhere, you find it by taking the best bits of all the things you try that you like along the way, and then you can start to paint this picture. So, right, I want to do something that involves this, this, and this. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is believing meaning only exists in big grand moments or big decisions about your life.

Lily 9:35

Definitely. But it's no wonder when you think about all the tropes that we see in media, for example, everything's like a big grand gesture. Everyone has these big, massive, dramatic turning points. Like it's not like you're focused on the enjoyment of making yourself a cup of tea in a film. It's like the boom box outside the window moment rather than those little small acts. So it makes sense.

Chris 9:57

Yeah, and how many times must you see something online that says follow your passion?

Lily 10:02

Yeah.

Chris 10:03

And people are thinking, I I don't know what my passion is. I I don't know if I've got a passion to follow. But you you find meaning in all of that lived experience, you know, the making a cup of tea through to everything else, uh, and it will grow and change. You could say meaning finds you as you experience more of life and figure out how you want to live it. For everything that you've done so far, what might be some of the things that come to mind now that would form part of your mix?

Lily 10:33

I think for where I'm at just now, just wanting to travel a lot more. I think this is quite a common answer for a lot of people that we all want to see more of the world, but going to some kind of unique and cool places and getting to experience that with friends or with Peter or even with you guys if we get another holiday in the books soon to go and visit Charlie. Yeah, I think affording myself like saving up my money being financially responsible to allow myself to go and do the travelling and things I do, but then also having stability, having routine, like that's the main thing that I'd want to focus on just now because I feel like that lines me up nicely to be able to try more stuff, find more stuff, develop the meaning further, if I mean it. Yeah. Yeah, I like this idea that you mentioned earlier that meaning is about enjoying the journey and who you're traveling with and all the small moments along the way. And it actually reminded me of this video I saw the other day of this guy who just made like a slideshow on TikTok, but it was he'd been out on a walk and he just was writing down all these little things that he'd noticed, like what other people were getting up to or things that were slightly odd or funny, and I thought that was a nice way to kind of document him taking in and appreciating the small moments along the way instead of just going for a walk. So can you say a bit more about that and that kind of process?

Chris 12:02

Yeah, it's about finding meaning in the present moment, like that guy's video. If you think about the moments in your life so far where you can say you felt most alive, most fully yourself, what would be a couple that come to mind?

Lily 12:18

I think in recent years, like when we went to I went to Primavera with my friends as a group, the group holidays that I've been on, the family holidays, like swimming in the sea. I love being near water and seeing all the amazing cliffs and amazing sunsets when you're away on holiday. Mines are very holiday focused.

Chris 12:39

But you want to see the world.

Lily 12:40

Exactly.

Chris 12:41

That's so so that's when you're feeling most alive.

Lily 12:44

What I'm interested in. And then also even just when you're out with like a really good night out with friends, when me and Jade used to go out a lot more, which I definitely couldn't manage now. I think that would it kill me off. But just being with friends, nice memories with friends, with Peter, with the family, pretty basic stuff, but as like we're talking about it as the little basic thing sometimes. It is.

Chris 13:07

If and if you were to make a list of some of those moments, then you could look for patterns. So what connects them? Is it the type of activity, the people you're with, the feeling that it gives you in that moment? And what's interesting is when I might ask a coaching client that question, no one ever says that it's getting a job or getting promoted. Or for you it might be like getting an exam result. Or that's a good or bad something.

Lily 13:39

What about buying something? My friend Lissy would probably say getting an exam result, but that's understandable if you've been studying since you were like sexy.

Chris 13:46

For six years. But it's usually not things. Yes. It is usually around either people or kind of being out in nature. The meaningful moments are almost always when we're with the people that are most important to us. Yeah. It's experiencing something physical and awe-inspiring in the world, like a you know, sunset, a breathtaking view. Just pausing and thinking, wow, I get to be here experiencing this right now. So when you get a sense of meaning. And it doesn't matter what age you are, these moments are the clues as to where meaning lies. And what do we usually do in these moments?

Lily 14:28

I would usually take my phone out and then take a picture or a video. Yeah.

Chris 14:35

Yeah, which is really, really common. It's nice to have a picture as a memory, but Arthur Brooks has another great take on this. He says, Why are you looking for 2D meaning in a 3D life? And we've got all of this beauty and wonder and connection round about us, and we're staring at our phones most of the time, hoping we'll feel more fulfilled. And it's not like you can store up this meaning just because it's on your uh camera roll. It's about experiencing it there and then.

Lily 15:04

Well, I saw another thing recently from a photographer, and she was talking about how iPhone photography is not really real photography, and it is kind of pointless, and it's kind of depleting your actual memory of things. Like it's different if you're taking it a camera and taking like a proper digital or film photograph of something and then having to go and get it developed or editing it and printing it out and keeping it in a photo album. But like realistically, how often do you actually go through your camera role and look at your holiday pictures? Like, I'll maybe look at the little slideshow that my phone makes of like the highlights, but the 20,000 pictures that I take of a view somewhere, I've I don't think I've ever really gone back and gone through the pictures. So no.

Chris 15:46

Because it's so incredibly easy.

Lily 15:48

There's so many of them on my phone.

Chris 15:49

And we have so many of them. Yeah, you don't maybe think of them as as precious as they used to be in my day when you had a roll of 24 and you didn't have a screen on the camera, you couldn't see what you'd actually taken. You'd send the film away for had to wait 28 days for it to come back, and you'd really kind of treasure the photographs, which are all in the attic, by the way. You can go through boxes and boxes of photographs at one point.

Lily 16:15

Yeah, and I have, and I love going through the photo albums, and I'm gonna compare one of all my own pictures very sudden, because I've realized that about my phone.

Chris 16:24

So one thing that struck me reading all these books is that like that and our modern culture is telling us to focus on ourselves. Like, look at me, this is where I was, you know, largely through what we read online and what we're seeing, and everything that is on social media or what we might be Googling or talking to AI about is improve yourself, optimize yourself, build your brand, follow your passion.

Lily 16:51

Market yourself, do that smart. Yeah.

Chris 16:53

And almost every writer on meaning shows it doesn't really come from looking inward. The meaning comes from shifting our attention away from ourselves and onto other people. So in instead of asking, How do I find my purpose? We should maybe be asking, who do I feel most connected to? Yeah. And where do I feel most alive? And then you try and do more of those things and be with those people more often. And it doesn't have to be big things like traveling the world, it can just be hanging out with friends.

Lily 17:29

Yeah, I think it's a lot more uh relational than some people might think it is. Yeah. So yeah, again, not finding this big grand purpose, going on this big journey, but well, going on a journey, but not this whole like quest to this one grand thing, but really just finding your tribe and doing a thing that you really believe in and it makes you happy, but not stressing about it being the thing, like the one thing of your life, just enjoying that journey. Like for me, definitely every time I hang out with my my pals, I'm like, wow, the meaning of life is right here, and it's a bit cheesy, but actually that's that's it, isn't it? It's true, yeah.

Chris 18:12

You should enjoy the journey as much as possible, but I think as you already know, it's not always going to be enjoyable.

Lily 18:22

No.

Chris 18:22

And if you think back to the episode we did on life transitions, uh Bruce Filer talked about life quakes.

Lily 18:30

Life quakes, yes.

Chris 18:31

Almost inevitable, you're gonna experience them. For Gen X, we've already lived through some of those, maybe many of them, could be redundancy, divorce, grief, failing at something, serious illness. No one wants these experiences, but when people are asked where meaning came from, they often point back to those difficult periods. You all have heard stories of people that have survived serious car accidents or heart attacks or illness, and they feel like they have a totally different perspective on how they want to live their lives after that. Yeah, totally. The really bad experience ends up giving them a sense of a new purpose or more meaning about what's important to them in life. Or we just come out of really rough periods in our lives and eventually find some meaning in it. I posted something a couple of weeks ago about how the worst period of my career actually acted as a catalyst for the midlife coaching that I do now. It was horrible at the time, but eventually that experience became really meaningful. I realized other people are going through things like that and I could help them. And if you think about some of your difficult experiences so far, sometimes you realise that if it wasn't for the dark times, we wouldn't appreciate the good in quite the same way.

Lily 19:53

Yeah, because it's not a question of whether there will be difficult moments or not, because there will be for everyone. But rather than saying, you know, how do I avoid the suffering? But instead kind of changing that to how do I make sure that I don't waste that experience. Like for me, uh when I had to change course, I've felt a bit like, oh, that was such a waste of time, I should have just done this from the jump. But the reality was I hadn't, so you know, I had to make the most of that experience, and I did, and that helped me realize that the path that I was on with the new course was a much better fit for me because I'd been through the bath. If you think about people who have lost siblings or children or whoever to a specific type of disease or accident, and then they campaign to stop that accident happening to anyone else or to raise money for the charity fighting the disease.

Chris 20:44

So they had laws changed because of that.

Lily 20:46

Exactly. Yeah, Natasha's law, things like that, like giving some meaning to the experience. Like even bad relationships, bad ex-boyfriends can help you realize that you have a good boyfriend now, or give you a bit of you know, fine-tune your discernment so you don't get into a relationship with another bad boyfriend. All these kinds of Yeah, you learn from all these kinds of things. Exactly. Making an experience means something.

Chris 21:10

And to go back to your point about meaning being relational is another aspect to that. If you think of all the people who have had something good happen to them because you were there, where have you helped someone else get through something or helped them improve their situation? If if you look back on your life, can you think of an example where you've done something or said something that has helped someone else out?

Lily 21:38

Uh yes. Like even if I was just on the group chat, maybe when one of my friends is like having a bit of an issue, or like if someone like I remember there's a time when there was like a girl on the street who was really drunk and I helped her get an ambulance, like things like that.

Chris 21:56

Oh, I remember I remember you talking to us about that. That was an Amazing thing to do.

Lily 22:00

Yeah, so things like that.

Chris 22:02

So this is what you can call the butt for test.

Lily 22:07

The what? The the but for.

Chris 22:09

So it's but for me.

Lily 22:11

Oh, okay.

Chris 22:12

Where did something happen in someone else's life that wouldn't have happened in quite the same way, or they wouldn't have got the same outcome, but for you. Something you did or said to help. Exactly that. That um young girl who was in a really bad state and you called an ambulance. I think you got in contact with her brother.

Lily 22:32

Yeah, dead actually, yeah. You remember better than me.

Chris 22:35

But you know, who knows what might have happened to because what she was about 14, 15? Yeah, must have been. Who knows what might have happened if you hadn't done that? It's exactly that. So yeah, things that happened as a result of what you did. It's that significance point that Arthur Brooks talks about.

Lily 22:53

And then what about for you? What's your butt-for moment?

Chris 22:57

Um, more recently when I've coached people, if it's helped them to get a job or start a business, those are pretty big ones.

Lily 23:05

That is a pretty big one. That's quite a meaning.

Chris 23:07

And it probably wasn't solely down to my coaching, but if I made them feel more confident or prepare for an interview better, that was a factor.

Lily 23:14

Yeah, empowering people to do so.

Chris 23:16

Or I remember one of the carers at granddad's nursing home saying that because of the dementia, he wouldn't remember my visit, but he would remember a feeling that a nice thing had happened. And that made it easier to deal with how the dementia was affecting him. And in fact, you could say the the carer had a butt-for moment with me right there because what they said changed how I felt about visiting him. I was less frustrated and more at peace with it and would just try and give him a happy feeling.

Lily 23:49

Yeah, and that carer probably didn't even realise that they were giving you a butt for moment.

Chris 23:53

No, often we don't part of the everyday. We don't realise we're having an impact on the other person, but we we are. There are things that only happen but for us being there and and doing something.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah.

Chris 24:05

So here's a question for you on the relational bit. Who matters more to you than you?

Lily 24:14

Um pretty much everyone. I like to think everyone closer in my life, you know, you guys, mum, dad, Charlie, my friends, Peter obviously. Do you mean or do you just mean like people that I would put above myself in a in a situation in a situation?

Chris 24:31

You're yeah, you're you're 3am people. So the people you would drop everything for to help in an emergency.

Lily 24:37

Yeah, definitely. My close friends, my family, Peter. Yeah.

Chris 24:44

And that gives us more clues as to where we can find meaning. So it's those people you're on the journey with. New ones will come into your life. Others might go at some point, but what you do with and for those people is usually really meaningful. And this sets up a really interesting idea for Gen Z. Do you remember talking to Charlie Rogers about the idea of the second mountain? So by midlife, Gen Xers have had some big achievements, right? Built a life, got some status, that's the conventional first mountain. And then we feel a pull to find a second mountain, which is more about the important relationships, making contribution to our community, giving our time and skills to something, all of that stuff.

Lily 25:34

Yeah.

Chris 25:34

Your generation are very globally minded, want better representation, care deeply about causes. Do you think Gen Z can climb both mountains at the same time instead of one after another, like Gen X?

Lily 25:51

Hmm, that is a good question. I think uh yeah, I think so, in in short. And I think part of the reason is because we are very globally minded, but also I feel like we want to have much other choice with the way things are going. I think people are gonna have to focus on community and lifting each other up as we head into the future. So I don't I think it'll be more of like a matter of urgency about doing both at the at the same time, but also because I think people would want to. That's a good question.

Chris 26:26

I think as technology has enabled all sorts of things, we've become and through the pandemic as well, we've become more aware of the importance of the connection to each other and not just online. You know, we were isolated for so long. Yeah, the importance of getting back together was huge, and hopefully we've carried some of that with us. That it is possible that you can still build a career and have some of the kind of milestone achievements, but pay attention to those important relationships, yeah, make time for those meaningful moments, all of that kind of stuff.

Lily 26:59

Yeah, GNZ growing up with social media and then COVID and all the rest of it, I think that will massively shape Aero Mountains and how we think about Kubernetes and all that. Good.

Chris 27:11

Yeah, climb them both at once. You've got the energy to do that. Gen X's don't, yeah. So what's landed with you about this idea of meaning then, Lily?

Lily 27:20

Well, I know that uh meaning is not the same as purpose. And I've already I'm already someone who's quite chilled about knowing that it'll just kind of reveal itself to me along the way. So that wasn't massively new, but I guess just thinking about the meaningful moments living in the present. Like I said, that was something I was actually thinking about last night before we recorded this episode, so that's what's jumping out at me from our conversation, and then also yeah, the relational element and how important all of that is to be there for people. And I like I really, really like the idea of the butt-for moment for others because I guess it's kind of similar to when we've talked before about the butterfly effect or sliding doors moments. I really like the thought that you could be included in someone's butt-for moment and have no idea, you could just be a carer doing your job, or you could be a barista making someone their coffee who makes their day. I like thinking about that, and I think I will take that away from this discussion and think how I can contribute to other people's moments more and then reflect on ones that I've had with other people more. So yeah, it's been really a nice conversation. What about you?

Chris 28:38

I think it is that relational piece that you can't go looking for meaning in kind of material things and it's not about achievements. You know, the senses of satisfaction that we get from those is only very fleeting, whereas the sense of satisfaction or fulfillment we have from that link. Yes, from good friendships, uh, you know, family connections, and those moments when you are together, uh, even though the moment's gone, thinking back on that memory, and it might be looking at the photos you have on your camera, but even just the memory of those good times, like like you were saying, brings back some of that feeling from what it was like when you were originally there and it's staying connected to that.

Lily 29:25

What else would you suggest in terms of how to uncover more meaning and stay connected to that more?

Chris 29:33

I think a really good starting point is making a list of those moments when you really felt alive and looking for what the patterns are. So, what were you doing? Who are you with? And you'll probably have your list of 3M people from that. But then if you look at your week and how much time you've spent with those people or checking in with them, that gives you some clues as to where your priorities lie. The people that say they don't feel much meaning in their lives usually aren't doing the things that light them up or spending time with the people that are most important to them. They've kind of lost sight of it. And then a really interesting test can be to imagine if you only had one year left to live from now, what would you do in that year? You would have to prioritize your whole bucket list. And you can't just blow up your life and go and do everything on that list. But right now, you could think about what would be one small experiment or activity you could do in the next year that moves you towards something on that list. So for you, you want to travel the world, but for now it could be what's one country you would pick that you'd want to visit in the next year and start saving and planning to make that trip.

Lily 30:49

Definitely. I think even just the mental activity of like reordering your bucket lists and priority is a good way to help you get a shift on with that. I need to do that. I don't think I even have a proper bucket list, I'll compile one.

Chris 31:02

But if you think if you knew you only had one year left to live, what would you do in the next month? You would clear all of the crap out of your life, you would stop worrying about lots of things that take up a lot of our brain power on a day-to-day basis, and you would really focus on what's important, and those are the things that are really important.

Lily 31:25

Yeah, definitely. And then thinking about who you want to do it with as well, because I can see how that could be a really meaningful experience if you did a trip you really wanted to do with some people who are really important to you, and if you did something like that every year, just a small thing, but something that's meaningful to you, and bringing people that you love and care about, you've got time to plan it and save up and something to look forward to. Like I know after the the World Cup shenanigans, me and my friend group have been really wanting to go to the States together, anyways, but that would definitely be like a big bucket list trip for all of us to go to Boston since they love the Scots so much now. That's you for a season to go, so stuff like that, that would be a laugh.

Chris 32:07

Yeah, so there you go. You are designing your life being intentional instead of just kind of drifting through it and wondering why don't I feel a sense of meaning? Like, what would you do in the next year where we could start planning a trip to the States? That'd be great.

Lily 32:20

Yeah. What about you?

Chris 32:22

You know, I think it would be to do something with a group of really special friends, like all go on a mini break together. And mum and I have have talked about doing this with them. We did something with this group last year.

Lily 32:34

Hey you've not been on like a group holiday in a long time.

Chris 32:37

I think that's No, it was like a long weekend and we had an absolute blast, and we should do that again.

Lily 32:42

Somewhere with some sunset for a bit longer as well.

Chris 32:44

Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah. So when we started this conversation, we were asking how to find meaning. But I think where we've got to is that meaning isn't something you you find, it's something you create.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris 32:58

Through the people you love, the experiences you have, the little moment. The suffering you have to endure. It's those moments you notice and the contribution that you make that leads to having more of a sense of meaning in your life.

Lily 33:11

Yes. And people need to stop stressing about the big grand revelation where they realise what their purpose is and instead just notice things on their walk and moments right in front of us, beyond the phone screen.

Chris 33:25

Yeah.

Lily 33:26

Yes. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, please be sure to give us a rating and write us a review as I feel just a fantastic audience.

Chris 33:38

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gen XD. Thanks for watching.