You will realize the meaning of life as you experience difficulties.

Meaning arrives late and out of order. In the middle of something hard almost nobody is having insights. They're making phone calls, moving appointments, working out who needs telling.

The realisation tends to show up years afterwards, unbidden, in a conversation about something else entirely. It can't be extracted on schedule, and you are not obliged to produce any of it now.

What's happening in the meantime is admin and endurance. That isn't a lesser version of the process. It's what the process is made of.