What is the meaning of life? Does your life make sense?

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

The meaning of life is the sense you are giving to it. You are the only one who can give it any kind of sense for you have the free will to be happy or not, to be lonely or not, to be bored or not, in other words, sitting and waiting for anything to happen in your life make no sense at all for you are in a vegetative state and not productive. On the other hand, if you get active and involved in some activities, take classes, learn something, help yourself get better at a skill, share in a relationship, love someone, play an instrument, sing a lullebye to your child, help someone in need, do jogging, look for work, teach something to someone, paint or draw, write or read, life will make sense to you as it does to me.
Life can be quite interesting if you are interested in building it this way!

Answer 3

The meaning of life? Still trying to figure that out. Does my life make sense? NEVER!!!!!! I think ive learned um lets see....
dont work too hard cuz then everyone expects too much more from you.
Dont help others in need because they will all just rip you off, dont trust guys at all
oh yeah and that if you live your life as a decent human being kind and always do for others selflessly you will be rewarded is not true in any way. I dont know why our parents try so hard to teach us that one.

Answer 4

Do the best that you can. Just try to make it all the way and still be able to dress/feed/and go to the bathroom by yourself until the last day.

Really, who knows. It's all a bunch of ups and downs. Enjoy the ups. Learn from the downs and move on to the next thing. To really enjoy your life you gotta try something that you normally wouldn't think you would do. Are you from the city? Try camping. Do you drive everywhere? Try riding a bike or taking the bus every now and them. Play any sports? Joined any clubs? Meeting people is one of the best ways to "find" yourself.

Answer 5

Shame on you for asking this. Do you realize how many people are going to spend hours trying to answer your question? Some might even spend weeks

Worse, some will spend their lives.

On the other hand, you asked a good question. Probably in a bad forum, but a good question none-the-less.

I cannot think of any question that could be asked on Yahoo! Answers that is more primal.

Except, maybe, how to make the perfect pie crust.


Kudos for you!

Answer 6

Life only makes sense..when you want it to.
I can find reasons why my life makes no sense at all...but there are other days things happen that makes it fulfilling.
Even if it's just saving that one little bug stuck in a trap.

Answer 7

Sometimes my life makes sense, but sometimes some of my experiences don't make sense until later.

Answer 8

love itself is a sense, it differs from meaning and reason greatly. I think what you mean to say is "life is not about meaning or reason". If that is the case let me know, I could use 30 pieces of silver.

Answer 9

The meaning of life is to inteligently to respond to the very basic wish, desire or tendency that every human and non human being has: attaining happiness and avoiding suffering.
We are so preocupied with our survival and reproduction of our genes (money, objects, shelters, sex, love) that we forget the the one thing that is most probable to survive is our mind. we do not know certainly if mind survives or not, its only a strong intuition... but, if we beginn to know mind itself, not only the processes of mind, the mirror which reflects things, not its images... than we somehow manage to accelerate our positive, confortable states of mind, and deccelerate the unconfortable ones.
so we know for certain that everything else, body, thoughts, feelings, money, cars, beautifull women, men, status, etc are all impermanent. this we know. so, its an intelligent thing to invest much more in the one thing that is more probable to last more than the others- mind.
so, to jump sequentialy out of the ups and downs which we experience, and to stabilize a confortable mental state has much to do with our basic tendecy to attain happiness and avoid suffering.
but tu manage to stabilize this state of happiness one needs to build up a realistic view about self, others, and this whole world which holds us all together.
there are many ways to approach mind: arts, spiritual practicies, science, extreme sports, buddhism, even strong human relationships like love (but not the usual ones based on a dependecy not even on the partner in front of you, but an your own expectations and chemicals that you release in his/her presence).

all these ways, if used properly, will lead in one way or another to a better knowing of the nature of mind.

...so, enjoy, good luck, i wish you progress!! :)

Answer 10

life is so beautiful you know....only if you able to appreciating your life.. enjoy your life and do everything what you want but must still follow the rules...

Answer 11

life is when you know you have goals and responsibilities to do.. Yeah.. i think my life has sense cause I know what I want and I know what my goals are..