The mystic experience (++++), faith (the light at the end of the tunnel/meaningfullness of life), and good works (do good). Not three paths of spirituality, but three parts to the answer, the synthesis of the experience and everyday life. Keeping your ideals you believe in (let's be serious, does anyone here really take moral relativism/nihilism seriously? Love, joy, and kindness are certainly preferable to hate, despair, and cruelty) and life as you live it separate/see it everyday can be pretty disasterous (drive a man to numb himself rather than face up to emptiness of a life based off of survival and pursuit of pleasure). Dropping out is for most a fallacious attempt to return to naive-purity. So what to do? Deny yourself, and live entirely along your ideals (love your neighbor as thyself).
This doesn't mean humanism and donating to charity with your extra money, this is a lifestyle. How do you love yourself? You give yourself food and shelter, heal your injuries, rationalize (forgive yourself) what wrongs you may commit, seek relaxation and relief. This is how you love your neighbor, forgive and bless those that do you ill, feed the hungered, help the homeless and impoverished improve there lives with every bit of effort you expend on yourself.
Can you be said to love your neighbor as yourself if you eat prime rib while they are hungered, wear expensive jewelry and designer clothing while they go hungry and wear rags? Drive a BMW whilst they walk or bike, or scrounge to take public transportation? No, if you do these things you do not love them, you love wealth and what you may cast you cast from abundance (and how little it is, truly). Be not a hypocrite and do these things. And when you dot ake luxuries for yourself (for certainly, every mans deserves rest and merriment), make it one that you are willing to share/give to those who can afford not (not everyday/time, but when you can). Let your joy be bringing joy to others, and since we all like feeling good, tarry not and maximize the joy you bring.
Such is my theory, displayed in as clear and nonreligious terms as possible. I ought to attempt it, it will either work out, or I'll be right back where I've been, numbing myself (either you let the pain and evils of the world crush you and seek to escape them, or seek to fight evil by doing none and bring goodness into the world, and thus find the meaning needed to bear the pain and make it productive).