What is the meaning of life?

Question

Please do not answer "42".

Answer 1

The philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

These questions are separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.
Popular beliefs
"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. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:

Survival and temporal success
...to live every day like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to eat
...to prepare for death
...to spend life in the pursuit of happiness, maybe not to obtain it, but to pursue it relentlessly.
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to find and take over all free space in this "game" called life
...to seek and find beauty
...to kill or be killed
...No point. Since having a point is a condition of living human consciousness. Animals do not need a point to live or exist. It is more of an affliction of consciousness that there are such things as points, a negative side to evolutionary development for lack of better words.

Wisdom and knowledge
...to master and know everything
...to be without questions, 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 understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by humans about life

Ethical
...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule"
...to give and receive love
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with yourself and each other, and in harmony with our natural environment
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds

Religious and spiritual
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to glorify God
...to experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...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 discover who you are
...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

Philosophical
...to give life meaning
...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 know the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity
...life in itself has no meaning, for its purpose is an opportunity to create that meaning, therefore:
...to die
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory )
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"

Other
...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 participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)
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Answer 2

How wonderful it is to have some perspective, dear. After constantly asking yourself what direction your life is going, doesn't it feel great to finally feel as if you know? How very wise you are! Yet all this recent wisdom is exhausting. You feel as though you've made a long trip up to the mountaintop to speak with the learned wise person at the top. Now that you're back down in civilization, it's time to find a soft bed and relax for a bit.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Answer 3

The meaning of life is different for each person. There is no one meaning of life for everybody. Many say that their family is what makes life meaningful. Some say friends, others say love or their career or success. It really is different for everybody. Sometimes one's meaning of life comes to them at an early age some not at all. I believe to really know the meaning of your life you need to meditate on it. Think about it. But don't worry of it doesn't come. It may take a while. Sometimes finding the meaning of your life may be as simple as asking yourself, "What in life do I enjoy?"

Answer 4

Most of the answers here are to a different question, i.e. "what is it that makes you happy?" as if personal happiness is the same as meaning. They invent some activity that makes them happy and then pretend that it is the purpose for which they exist.

But meaning comes from living for a real purpose.

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” –Bertrand Russell (Nobel Laureate, mathematician and philosopher)

But if we do admit that God might exist, then we immediately see that we ought to seek Him instead of going off and creating feel-good, pretend-purposes.

Christians believe that we seek and find God through obeying His command to love our neighbor for where love is, there God is also. That is our purpose and all other activities flow from that.

Answer 5

Live, Laugh, Share, Care, of all nature habitats.
Reproduce if you got the money and the time for kids to live with you for 18 years.

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle.

Bonnie and Clyde found their niche, unfortuntaley fate caught up with them.

Its how you choose to live. Give a penny, borrow a penny from the penny overage/underage tin cup.

A contributing member of society or a hobo, always expecting a helping hand as needed/required.

Answer 6

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

shakespeare

Answer 7

many have asked that question for a long long time and to my knowledge i dont know anyone who knows an accurate answer to that question although there are alot of ideas but yeah, i actually asked that 2 som1 quite some time ago. they said be happy and make the most of the life you have as it is probli best not to question it.

Answer 8

to eat, sleep, and survive in order to reproduce. That is what every living thing will try to do or die trying.

To be a live is a gift. Be nice to others, work hard, life life to the fullest. Try not to say no. Listen to others. Learn and be respectful.

Answer 9

To bear witness to all that exists. Or maybe 43.

Answer 10

The period from birth to death is life

Answer 11

To enjoy your family and friends. And to make the most out of it.