Meaning Isn’t Something We Find Once

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Meaning isn’t something we find once.
It’s something we return to.

We often talk about meaning as if it were a discovery, something we uncover, claim, and then carry forward intact. A moment of clarity. A realization. A turning point. And in some sense, that’s true. Many of us can point to times when meaning felt unmistakably present.

But if meaning were something we simply found, we wouldn’t need to return to it.

The fact that we do suggests something else is happening.

Meaning doesn’t disappear because it was false. It recedes because life keeps moving. Days fill with responsibility. Attention drifts. What once felt clear becomes buried under routines, expectations, and the steady accumulation of small moments that demand something from us.

To return to meaning often requires sorting through those moments, deciding which ones mattered, which ones distracted us, and which ones quietly reshaped our priorities without our noticing. That process can feel frustrating. Why should something so important require so much effort to recover?

A more useful question might be this: Why does meaning need to be practiced rather than preserved?

Meaning seems less like a possession and more like a relationship. It responds to attention. It fades when neglected. Not because it leaves us, but because we leave it—by necessity, by distraction, by change.

Returning to meaning isn’t a failure. It’s a sign of awareness. It’s noticing drift and choosing to come back. Not to the exact version we once found, but to an updated understanding shaped by who we’ve become since then.

Meaning doesn’t hide. It waits. And the return is part of the work.

Our sense of meaning often fades not because it’s gone, but because our attention has shifted.

Meaning isn’t something we arrive at once, it’s something we practice.