whats the meaning of life?

Answer 1

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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. Many of these responses could be shown to overlap in many ways:

Survival and temporal success

...to live everyday like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...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 (alike to number three)
...to protect one's family
...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to see how long humanity can go on, before it destroys the Earth
...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 try to discover and understand 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 understand creation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by man about life.
Ethical

...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
...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds
Religious and spiritual

...2 Thessalonians 1: 11, 12 says our instructions from God as Christians is to be like Christ and to be worthy of his calling by doing what Christ would do (W.W.J.D.)
...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 be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...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
Other

...to be emotionally fulfilled
...to find true love
...to live, love, and laugh
...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 nonconformism)
...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.
...to make life as difficult as possible for others
...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)
...life may actually not exist, this is all a surreal dream.
...to live in fear of possible events that may happen after life ends.
...have fun while it lasts.
...the purpose of life is balance.

Answer 2

A life of meaning is much more important than the meaning of life

Answer 3

There is no meaning of life.

To have a meaning it has to be planed. And life is something that just simply happened and was not planed.

If you believe in a god then you could say the meaning of life is to serve your god but I for one don't believe in the fairytails of religion. So I will just enjoy my time here and I will die and be no more. That is all there is to it. We will all one day die out and it will be over. There is nothing more. Even if we move out into space and live on other planets at some point all the stars will go out and it will still all end. No one to read about how great our race was.

So again there is no meaning of life.

Answer 4

I think you might do better reflecting on why you think life has a meaning. By the way, I notice nearly everyone above remarks on what they think is the purpose of life, not the meaning; and that nearly all of their answers are limited (unlike your question) to human life, not life in general.

Answer 5

Whats the meaning is not the question, it is....
IS there a meaning to life?

It is what you make of it.

Answer 6

The meaning of life is to learn - all you are is what you know - you can do no good in life without the knowledge to DO it -- learn -- do good -- THAT is the meaning of life

Answer 7

whatever u decide to make it. Some people think that life is pain and suffering, others take the bull by the horns (enjoying life as it is, and taking control). It's all in your perception. There's no right or wrong answer.

Answer 8

That is the question everyone would like to know. Keep soul searching and make the most out of your passions in life, or try to find what truly makes you thrive and happy.

Answer 9

This is an often asked question. I vote that 'children' are the meaning of life but I can see how that answer isn't good enough for many people.

Answer 10

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Answer 11

You're put here to learn certain lessons so that when you vaporize into eternity you can navigate your way correctly.

Mostly, learn that love and family and fellow humans are of most importance and that you should spend every moment showing respect and love while they're here instead of crying when they're gone.