Treating a Meaning Junkie

Last night Frank Capra restored me to sanity.

You see, every so often I lose my senses, and start lamenting my failure to rack up any "meaningful" achievements. I haven't cured AIDS, for example. Or been elected Pope. (OK, so I'm not a Catholic. But still...) Or solved any of life's enduring mysteries, such as why people eat Brussels sprouts.

At such times, I judge my life to have been nondescript and irrelevant. (Neurotic, yes. But there's nothing like a neurosis or two to add interest to a dull life.)

Anyway, last night Frank Capra rescued me from a bout of this affliction. He did so by way of his master-movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

George Bailey (played by - who else? - James Stewart) is a good and decent man. But for all his kind deeds, he has never been able to escape the small town of his birth and pursue his dreams. In despair one night, he is moved to say, "I wish I had never been born." Whereupon Clarence, his guardian angel, gives him the chance to see the world as it would have been if there had never been a George Bailey.

What George sees is that his acts of unsung kindness have touched countless people. In aggregate, they have changed the world.

Last night, watching Capra's movie for the umpteenth time, I thought of some real-life George Baileys I have been blessed to know. They have changed my life, and the lives of my children, by their remarkable support over the last two years.

And I was reminded of a simple truth that I occasionally forget. A life rich in meaning isn't built on mighty and noble deeds, the stuff of headlines. It is built on human connection. And that flows from micro-deeds - random acts of kindness - performed day after day.

Now, if I can just find a way to eliminate world poverty...