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)
* ...to complete your list of life goals
* ...to find something to believe

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, or to keep asking questions
* ...to find out the meaning of life
* ...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 find true love
* ...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)
* ...to determine a set of goals based on an individuals belief in the meaning of life and work towards the attainment of those objectives.
* ...a combination of any of the above.
* ...42

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?
* ...because nobody will ever love you.
* ...life may actually not exist, this is all a surreal dream.

But most importantly

* ...not to die.

Answer 2

To improve in every sense of the word. Without that, life would spiral towards decay, as would life conditions, or life expectancies.

The meaning of life can then be brought down to simply do your best in everything you do, because how could that not lead to a sort of gradual improvement. For proof, look how you have evolved from a small being who virtually knew nothing to someone who knows a thing or two and will end up with more knowledge than the little baby you once were ever even considered. Or look how the human race has improved their life expectancy by improving conditions surrounding their very lives.

If the meaning of life were anything other than improvement, we would live very short lives, highly uneventful and with no gain whatsoever. Improvement however is a very slow and gradual process when taken into view, and therefore often overlooked as the obvious reason why we live. But when you take it out of the equation of life, a doom scenario will soon follow.

Answer 3

A similar question would be "what is the value of life?" We can safely assume that existence is preferable to non existence when life has value. In the broadest possible sense, life is just another expression of the universe interacting with itself.

Answer 4

It is hard to say what is the meaning of life is. I think it is to live the time that you have on the earth.

Answer 5

In life there are two houses you build one is the one you and your family will live and you build that by getting education and so on.. the other you build so you can live in it after you die and you build that by being good to your lord.. you will leave the house you build for this life but the one that you build for the hereafter is eternal; which would you spend more time building?

Answer 6

Life is living, enjoy it, get my meaning.

Answer 7

Whatever you make of it. It is your choice what you make of your life. Personally, I choose to be happy, and do my best to see that those around me are happy. Live by faith not by sight and it works for me. Good luck and God bless.

Answer 8

the meaning of life = X.
X = { T, Y, G, J, K, L, ∞, 0, 1 }
X -> ∞
X -> -∞
-∞ < X < ∞
what is X?

Answer 9

To eveolve spiritually.
In other words to become a better person, by learning something about ourselves every day.

Answer 10

To make a differnce, in peoples lives!

Answer 11

the meaning is to find the meaning and fail

i dont think were meant to find it

because if we did

that would be the sad end to everything

everything will seem meaningless

why do people have to define everything