What's the meaning of life?

Question

Every body had been through happiness and sadness. Every body tried to make something out of life, every body cared about their future and make money. I never understood the whole point of doing any of that, can any one tell me what's the meaning of life?

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)

Answer 2

This is probably the most commonly asked question of all time.I have answered it so many times that I cant count but Im willing to explain it again.
Let's just say that the earth and everything on it were just a little experiment for God in his spare time.Eventually we began to learn how to adapt and live on our own.And so here we are today.
I do not believe life really has a meaning.We are all just walking around waiting to die and possibly go to a better place once its all over.There is not fate and or future is determined by the descisions we make now.
If you really want your life to have meaning go out and change the world and do something that you want to do.Dont live for other people.Live for yourself.Its not one way of life fits all.
Life has no meaning in general and you arent born with a meaning.

Answer 3

First off you will only find the answer as you live your life. It also changes as you change with maturity. If you give of yourself to others in a humble service. Not expecting anything in return. You will find a lot of answers to most of these type of questions. If you only serve your self. you will not find it as enjoyable for the long term. Brief pleasures are just that. Than it all ways looking for the next thing and the next thing. Try to be satisfied with small gains, great insights. Use money as a tool, not as device for great happiness.

Answer 4

There's only one real answer to this question, and that's that life has no meaning.

However, there are two types of people. There are those who hear that life has no meaning built into it and despair, because they see the earth as a terrible place, and to them, if there's no cosmic justification for it, no afterlife, or meaning given to them by a higher authority, they see it as a terrible thing.

On the other hand, there are those who realize that life has no meaning, and rejoice because this means that they are perfectly free to decide for themselves what the meaning of THEIR life is, and to take full responsibility for their own actions, good or evil.

Answer 5

The meaning of life is getting entrapped into a labyrinth of trying to figure out what the heck this life means. It means nothing to no higher being, no other person.

The true menaing of life these days is being the richest one can be and for women, being born "hot" enough to be *f--d* by men for 20 years max. That's how I see the trivial dances of mating and f***king and people getting stoned and drunk while wasting away...


Let's face it--life truly sucks. And for those who try to do it the gooooood old fashioned way by studies have to spend endless nights on <4 hrs of sleep. I was tired of life before my youth ever began.

Answer 6

It's whatever -you- want it to be. It's your life, how can you possibly even -think- of letting anyone else tell you what it's about or how to live it? Much less -ask- them to?
The meaning of life is a question you have to answer for yourself. Most people never take the time to figure out who or what they are, so they're always miserable with how their life is and they don't have the first clue about how to make it better.

Doug

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Grab the next instant of pleasure... And above all satisfy our instinct to survive. The purpose of life is satisfy our wishes and needs, to carry out our happiness.

Answer 9

Our purpose in this life is to die. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether you want to leave a footprint in the sands of time is up to you, but you had better start walking, because no one wants to leave an @ss print in the sands of time.

Just remember- it's only life. We all get through it.

Answer 10

The meaning differs between people because we all have differnet personalities. I think the meaning of life is to find love and to be with that person. You can't live without love or you will be alone.

Answer 11

if one attempts to define the meaning ,of such,,it destroys the meaning....life is everything,,, the good ,the bad,and all that is going on,,,,,all the hate,all the greed,,all the happiness,all the love.....hard to digest,,,but it is a fact. if one can see this fact,without judgment,or opinion,maybe,just maybe,,thought will heal it's self.......

take care,,,D.