2006-10-10 04:03:48 · 14 answers · asked by Alisha 2 in Family & Relationships ➔ Other - Family & Relationships
"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?
2006-10-11 13:04:17 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Before the first part can be answered , the second part needs some thoughts.
We , always ,talk of means and ends. Some use the phrase , "mistaking a tree for a garden ". As we go thorugh our respective lives , I think, we take many other things as being important. Wealth, recognition, acceptance, health ...to name a few. . But , when we get these we find that we are still not satisfied and we want something else . That means the end is not clear in our minds.
Frankly, the important thing in life is "happiness' and all these pursits are just means to that end but are really not the ultimate happiness.
If you ( I) understand this and seek this ultimate happiness by understanding ourselves better then Life has a meaning . It is this Awareness, the Truth and the eternal happiness are the ingradiennts of life.
2006-10-10 11:15:10 · answer #2 · answered by YD 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Life is the physical earth and all the experiences one undergo therein. The most important thing in life is to love all without discrimination.
2006-10-10 11:10:10 · answer #3 · answered by peaceman 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
alright first: to me life is what your are and what you make of it. all the stories that you tell that starts with ( you will never believe what i did this weekend)
second: is everything that you can show for... wife, job, car, friends, and most important... your family.
lastly life is simply........ you ......... so make the most of it or before you know it your old and in a retirement home.
2006-10-10 11:11:50 · answer #4 · answered by ford_mud_runner 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
life is the greatest gift that God given to mankind any living creatures.....the most important thing in life is to use ur life according to God's way or in a right manner....using ur freedom/will in a right thing,appreciate and use wisely every minute of ur life in earth coz life is too short.
2006-10-10 11:13:25 · answer #5 · answered by rare_1428 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Life is all about knowing yourself and knowing what you expect from life. What ever we do is for our own happiness, even the sacrifices are for own sake/satisfaction and not favors to others.
2006-10-10 11:09:04 · answer #6 · answered by PANKS 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
YOU!
That want me to say right? I got a wife and she is most important person next to my aunt and my cat.
2006-10-10 11:11:23 · answer #7 · answered by Kenshin 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"All life is suffering"
First Noble Truth of Buddhism
Buddha
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."
paraphrased quote from Genghis Khan used in the movie Conan the Barbarian
2006-10-10 11:19:50 · answer #8 · answered by whidd2003 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Life is struggle. Learn to be happy under all circumstances.
2006-10-10 11:05:48 · answer #9 · answered by Clown Knows 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
life is what we live everyday even if it's good or bad life is what we make of it and waking up to see another day, to help another person to have good and bad days to be me that's life to me
2006-10-10 11:12:53 · answer #10 · answered by ♥*♥Bahamian Gal♥*♥ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
living life and growing.
2006-10-10 11:05:15 · answer #11 · answered by beachgirl90 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋