The Meaning of Life

A question most every human has pondered goes something like, What is the meaning of life? Philosophers have waxed endlessly and debated vigorously, in their attempts at responses. Does life have a purpose? A significance? Is there an intention or reason for it all? Why is life like it is? Is there some goal, some objective to this existence?

It’s within the capacity of highly-conscious human beings to ponder these puzzles. We look within ourselves and wonder. We observe our world—peering into the past, experiencing the present, curious about what’s to come—and find ourselves asking, What’s it all about? Seeking order and meaning to the world, we look for a plan, a design, a higher purpose. We’re uncomfortable with the unknown. We want answers.

Part of our dilemma, I believe, is due to our propensity in the West for thinking dualistically. We sort things into good/bad, right/wrong, left/right. Thus, if we are unable to decide what the meaning of life is, we are prone to conclude that it has no meaning. If I can’t understand its purpose, maybe it has none?! But just because we can’t come up with an answer when a question is posed in a certain way, must we leap to an opposite conclusion?

Another problem with this question as it is posed is that we don’t even know how to measure meaning; and if we think we do, our measure is nothing more than subjective. One person’s meaningfulness is another’s worthlessness. What we thought was meaningful when we were in our twenties can seem pretty shallow after we cross the half-century line.

I tend to feel that an answer to the meaning of life question is well beyond us at this stage of humanity’s development—and may forever remain so. We don’t even know what life is; we can’t really define it and we’re ignorant of most of its manifestations on this little planet. (Biologists estimate that we’ve named only a tiny fraction of Earth’s species, let alone understand what they do.)

I think the question can be addressed, however, if I back away from considering all life and look in the mirror. How do I make my life meaningful? What gives my life purpose? The answer comes pretty easily: Serve my world. Help others. Try to see that my actions are done in the spirit of love and in a way that I do the least harm. Rather than endlessly pondering rhetorical questions, let me get on with the business of doing some good.