Human beings are meaning-making creatures. We get to decide the meaning we apply to all the different life situations, ideas, and beliefs. This concept isn’t new but rather something we’ve been doing for years and years. Every human being on this planet has applied meaning to all the different facets of their lives. Let’s explore what this means.

I’ve shared previously about how I grew up in a conservative home. Being raised in that environment meant that we couldn’t speak cuss words. All of those four-letter, salty words weren’t allowed in my parent’s household. This rule was because of a meaning attached to those words, which happened when someone decided that those words were wrong. They’re disgusting. They’re sinful. They’re awful. They’re gross. That meaning, chosen by another human, was transferred to my parents, who then transferred it to my brother and me. So that meant in my parent’s house, we weren’t allowed to say them. Interestingly, those same words in a different culture might not exist. A different home might not have the same meaning applied.

Cuss words are just words that someone applied meaning to, and the meaning made them evil. The words are just words, but humans decide what they mean.

If your parents taught you to believe in Santa Claus, you would attach meaning to a jolly large man with a white beard in red clothes. Well, I didn’t believe in Santa Claus. He had no meaning in our household. It’s not right or wrong. I didn’t miss out on anything as a kid because of it.

You attach meaning to everything.

When I say meaning, I’m talking about the value, significance, importance, etc., that you apply to an event, idea, words, situations, relationships, conversations, thoughts, beliefs–all of it. You have attached meaning, or inherited a meaning, to everything in your life.

The word blue means the color blue that we all know when we say the sky is blue because that’s a meaning that someone applied. So everybody knows what that means because we have attached that particular color with that word in our English language.

Meaning does not come from outside of us. Depending on where you grow up, what part of the world you live in, and what religion you claim, you have meanings about ideas, beliefs, situations, and events that will be different from other people’s meaning.

Have you ever stopped and questioned why a particular meaning gets applied to a certain idea or word?

Meaning is inherited.

A lot of the collective meaning attached to things is inherited. The meaning gets passed down. In general, when it comes to the big ideas of life, things like our belief systems, religion, politics, language, or even the general ways that we organize ourselves as a society, someone somewhere attached meaning to all of those things. And the meaning is what got passed along.

That meaning has been handed down over and over again through the generations. Sometimes a particular meaning sticks for millenniums. Other times, a meaning comes and goes quickly. So what you are inheriting is not a set of beliefs but a set of meaning.

Meaning is allowed to evolve.

The idea that humans attach meaning has destructive effects and incredibly powerful effects. When you realize that a human attached a meaning to something you believe, it can dismantle your belief system. It can throw you off-kilter because now you must decide whether the meaning someone else applied is the meaning that you will apply. This process takes work and effort, especially when it comes to the big ideas in life.

Meaning goes through an evolutionary process, just like you and I. As humans evolve, the meaning we apply to situations can also change over time. You see this in big ideas, religion, belief systems, politics, relationships. Everything is evolving, including the meaning that different things have.

It’s important to remember this and become okay with this part of evolution. If you don’t understand meaning can be changed, you may spend an entire lifetime trying to accept the meaning that others have applied even when it’s doesn’t work for you.

You can change the meaning and still be okay. Like others who came before you have decided what the meaning around a belief will be, you also get to choose. For some people, that feels destructive, invasive, and scary.

When I started to understand that humans get to decide the meaning behind things, everything in my life was up for questioning. I couldn’t unknow this idea, so I had to question everything. I spent years dismantling my religious beliefs. I spent years dismantling my political views. I spent years dismantling my relational ideas. I spent years dismantling my internal, personal mental health opinions. Nothing was off-limits.

I looked at every inherited meaning and decided if it still held significance or not. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn’t. Both results were okay. Remember that the meaning that you, or others, give to something is only one option. It doesn’t mean it’s the absolute truth.

Cuss words don’t have the same meaning in my household as in my parents. The meaning behind God, through the ages, has changed. God has been the sun, stars, moon, earth, ocean, land, trees, savior, friend, father. God means different things depending on whether you’re Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Agnostic, or Jewish. God means something different to men and women.

The meaning behind God has evolved because meaning goes through an evolutionary process, just like people. You can’t have one without the other.

If you’re struggling, change the meaning.

If you are struggling because of an idea, belief, relationship, conversation, event, or story that has a meaning attached to it that doesn’t hold space for you anymore, change the meaning. You get to be part of the evolutionary process of applying meaning.

Maybe the ways you change it won’t impact millions and extend for generations, but perhaps it will affect your partner, child, best friend, or parent. Maybe they’re also stuck believing and accepting a particular meaning because they don’t know it’s okay for meaning to evolve.

You are a meaning-making machine, just like the generations before you. You get to decide what meaning you apply to all the things in life.

The meaning that I apply to religious ideas today is vastly different than five years ago. Likewise, as I evolve, it may look vastly different five years from now.

When you claim your role as a meaning-maker, you become an incredibly accepting, nonjudgmental presence in this world. Instead of needing to prove that others are wrong, and you’re right, you know that behind every idea is a meaning that others inherited or decided.

You might feel scared to change the meaning behind something that has meant so much to you for so long, and I understand that fear intimately. However, you have to remember that you get to decide what meaning you apply. If the meanings you hold close work for you, no one is forcing you to change them. But, on the other hand, if the meanings you hold close aren’t working, the power to change them lies within you. That’s freedom. Not fear.