The Meaning of Life vs. a Meaningful Life

meaninglife

I don’t claim to know the meaning of life because I don’t know whether such a thing exists, and even if it does, I don’t know how one could discover it. Every type of opinion on the meaning of life is essentially a belief – an idea that you might live your life around but not necessarily have concrete evidence to prove that it is true.

What can I say? I am a scientist by nature. I believe in logic. I like rational arguments. I like having reasons for things.

And for those reasons, I find it hard to believe that we could ever find a true meaning of life: Why are we here? What is our purpose?

To believe that there is a true meaning of life implies that this meaning must be universal and applicable to everyone – yet how could we ever find such a thing?

Fate

Some people believe in fate or destiny – the idea that everything that is going to happen was meant to be.

I don’t like to believe in fate because it implies that I really don’t have free will. It implies that I am not really making decisions because it was already pre-determined that I was going to take those actions.

If you believe in fate, how could you ever blame someone? A criminal could argue that it was fate for him to commit a crime, and since all of this was pre-determined, it’s technically not his fault. Yes it would be fair to jail him since he is a danger to society, but if you believe in fate, how could you justify blame?

If you believe that everyone on this earth was born with a set purpose, does this not suggest at least some aspect of pre-determined events? Then again, I guess you could argue that we may all have a purpose but we don’t necessarily all complete our “life mission”.

If you were to vanish right now, would your life have mattered?

I am content knowing that I will never know what the true meaning of life is, if there even is one. What I do know is that if you choose to, you can lead a meaningful life.

It seems by nature that humans are social creatures. So to me, we have the most meaning by impacting the lives of others. And in that sense, it’s hard to lead a meaningful life if you live a solitary life.

If you were all alone on an island, with no contact with other humans, how could you ever impact someone’s life? To the rest of humanity, you essentially never existed.

Thus, you can’t lead a meaningful life if you live a solitary one. That being said, at least for humanity’s sake, leading a meaningful life is not necessarily better than leading a solitary one.

Positive Impact

It’s true that many of history’s tyrants have led meaningful lives, though their actions are not things I would personally encourage. And although it would be wrong to downplay the impact of their lives on humanity, it doesn’t mean they led lives we should aspire to.

Personally, I want to live a positively meaningful life. I want to impact people in a way that makes them happy and improves their lives. If I am ever remembered for something, I would want to be remembered for doing something positive.

I think deep down everyone wants their life to matter. Not necessarily that they existed for a reason, but that their existence mattered.

And if you choose to positively impact those around you, then your life definitely matters.