What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

To become truly humane, to oneself and to others.

Answer 2

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.

Answer 3

Well, if 40 persons have attempted answers, I think I too could try.

It is an irony that the most precious thing that we have, viz. our life, we do not know what we should do with this. Should we merely eat, drink, make merry and procreate as all other beings, or, is there something more important for us to do? Why should we imagine we need to do different from other beings - in what way are we different? Is it the higher intelligence? But all beings do have intelligence, though to a lesser degree. This could simply mean we have to do what other beings are doing better than how they are doing - this should not lead us to do something else altogether. What is unique in us that drives us to feel the need to do something else altogether?

The clear and plain answer to this is our ego, our superiority complex. We conveniently believe that since we are the most intelligent creatures around here, it is for us to decide what is good or bad for this world. We arrogantly fool ourselves to believe that we are the rulers of this world.

We are too clever as well. We realise that such an attitude amounts to bloated ego and even an insult to our own intelligence since we know only too well how uncertain the future is and hence how powerless we really are. So, we put this on to God - that God has specially made such a great species as the human beings to exclusively serve His grand purpose. In the name of serving God's purpose, we articulate all that is actually our own need - for example, helping each other, compassion, love etc. etc. All these are our needs and not God's purpose.

There is and there can be only one meaning of life and that is to live the life happily and peacefully. Experience has taught us that our restless mind can not be satiated merely by eating, drinking, making merry and procreating. Moreover, our ego too demands we need to feel we are doing something more important than that. However, what is that something more important is not anything common to all of us - being different individuals, our ideas, views and requirements are also different. That something special is simply whatever the respective ego in each of us decides. There can be no grand overall purpose common to all of us.

While we have to do whatever would satisfy our ego, we should perhaps all the time remember that after all, we are but a minuscule part of this vast and varied universe. It is the rules and requirements of the universe that takes care of us rather than we trying to take pride in serving any of its purposes, as purely imagined by us!!

Answer 4

It depends on if you are religious or not.

If you are religious, the meaning of life is the service of god or something related.

If you are not, it can mean :

* Since there is no after life and there is no clear meaning, nne should enjoy life as much as one can

Though I do not like the idea of after life(especially one with hell in it,) I try my best to be a good person(even with no karma and no rewards in the afterlife) and I try to help others and to realize my full potential. At the same time, I try to have as much fun as possible.

I know this does not answer the question. But chances are no body knows.

Answer 5

The reason why no one can find the meaning of life, is because we exist only to Be. To See. There is no Meaning to Life. Except to See what we wish to See. What ever we wish to see, we see.
By coming here, there are chances of seeing negative experiences or positive ones.
Always we are seeing.
Where ever we move on to, we continue to See.
For we exist in the moment of Now.

Answer 6

Meaning implies reason or purpose. The reason could be determined only if we could know how or why anything existed at all. We can never know that - except to speculate that something always existed. And that a series or chain of causes and effects have always existed. And that life is part of that chain, with no other purpose except to contribute to the progression of that chain.
Which isn't really a purpose but as close to one as we can get.

We are, paradoxically, purposeless beings who yearn for purpose and have come to wonder at its lack.

Answer 7

The meaning of life is a gift we are given. The meaning changes and altars according to our personal experiences along the way. But in esence we are here to explore and discover and enrich enhance......sometimes though we loose sight of the positives and dwell on the negatives and those with power govern our destiny up to a point. But we can all take a bit of control and look inside our minds to see what is really going on in there. We are too easily swept along by what is considered to be normal.
The true meaning for me is to be true to yourself and value the honesty......to be critical.......and learn from mistakes.

Answer 8

All the world is a stage and we are the players. We choose to be here to learn lessons from a previous life, once learnt we progress to a higher state of conscious. What ever we say, do or feel on this plane is helping or destroying the quality of our next existence.

Answer 9

Serving a PURPOSE, what ever that might be. Through teaching? Serving a table at a restaurant? Anything just be of service to humanity? and make this a better world. bring out the goodness that we all have. Make this world a place where you would want you children to grow up in.

Answer 10

The meaning of life is different to each person. All depends on what you want in life and what you want to acheive and get out of it! Live life to the full!!!

Answer 11

There is no meaning.
There is no higher truth.
There is no purpose.
We are just a highly evolved ape species who can't come to terms with the fact that an accident created all of nature and could just as easily "un-create" it!
Stop thinking about this and become a hedonist.