What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question:

Survival and temporal success

* ...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
* ...to advance natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
* ...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future human
* ...to compete or co-operate with others
* ...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
* ...to die having succeeded in your purpose
* ...to gain and exercise power
* ...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
* ...to live
* ...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction
* ...to protect one's family
* ...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
* ...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
* ...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
* ...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, or to keep asking questions
* ...to expand one's perception of the world
* ...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
* ...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
* ...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
* ...to try to discover and understand the meaning of life
* ...to understand creation

Ethical

* ...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
* ...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
* ...to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
* ...to become like God, or God-like
* ...to be rewarded for your deeds
* ...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. God)
* ...to express compassion
* ...to follow the "Golden Rule"
* ...to give and receive love
* ...to live in a way that you don't harm yourself and don't harm your environment
* ...to work for justice and freedom

Religious and spiritual

* ...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
* ...to die and become a martyr
* ...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
* ...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
* ...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
* ...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
* ...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
* ...to serve others, or do good deeds
* ...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment and atonement
* ...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
* ...to worship, serve, or achieve union with God
* ...to disprove the existence of a or all all gods

Other

* ...to achieve self-actualisation
* ...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
* ...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
* ...to live, and enjoy the passage of time
* ...to have fun
* ...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
* ...to make the conformists' lives miserable (see non-conformism)
* ...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
* ...to relate, connect, or achieve unity with others
* ...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
* ...to seek and find beauty
* ...as there is no intrinsic meaning to life, to each individual, the "meaning of life" is whatever he/she decides it is. In that sense, every point above is potentially valid.
* ...an answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" is that it is just simply being able to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" (see Sri Sri Ravi Shankar below)
* ...a combination of any of the above.

No purpose, and therefore...

* ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
* ...just a series of events
* ...just nature taking its course
* ...the wheel of time keeps on turning
* ...the cycle of life
* ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
* ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
* ...who cares?

Answer 2

What makes you think there is a meaning? And by life I'm fairly sure you mean human life. And the answer is exactly the same as the answer for tree life. It's an accidental by-product of genes automatically trying to make copies of themselves. No reason or meaning for that either. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while you've got it though.

Answer 3

Life in simple terms is taking birth as a HUman being, However the meaning differs from person to person, and it's you who has to find out meaning in life.
If your life is meaning-less, try reaching and helping others... may give you a reason...
There are many who love life but are incapable of living normally, you can help those...
children, who don't know the meaning of life are begging for food... and many more...
Life is just not about living; It's also letting others live.

Answer 4

Live, love and laughter. We are born, exist then die. Think of life as being a mass of molecules vibrating together causing energy and material matter that somehow manages to have emotions wether you are animal vegetable or mineral. That's the good part, to be able to have emotions. Emotions teach us how to have all we need to survive. We experience anger, fear, hate. jealousy but we also experience love, joy, compassion and empathy and with all this knowledge we build our life. It is how we use the knowledge we have that dictates how well we live our life and how happy we are. Life should be full of happiness. How we get it is up to us.... It shouldn't matter why we are here .. Just accept it and live life to the fullest the best way you can with the knowledge that you have to make it as enjoyable as possible.....

Answer 5

the meaning of life is to live out the moments from your childhood to the age you die.. these moments must be enjoyed if you didnt enjoyed these moments that means you had a tough life if you did enjoyed these moments that means you had a good life..

now if you wanna know the scientific meaning of life that means.
A characteristic state or mode of living
The experience of living; the course of human events and activities
The period during which something is functional (as between birth and death)
The period between birth and the present time
The period from the present until death...

Answer 6

meaning of life is live

Answer 7

Once my English professor asked in a class, 'Why are we living??'

And I replied, 'To die!'.

Life has got many dimensions acccording to individuals, for some it's purely enjoyment, and for some it is the goal. Some blame destiny and some praise god..

But truly.., every individual in this world struggle for living. It is life that rules world...and change minds... You and me can't understand life to its core. Think whatever and stick upon it... That is life... :-)

Answer 8

To learn the lesson we came here to experience.

Answer 9

To ask questions on yahoo answers.

Answer 10

To live.

Answer 11

To evolve spiritually.