The Meaning of Life

By Darbright Ng

It's a simple question that consists of only six words:

"What is the meaning of life?"

Yet it is the one question that mankind has sought the answer to for centuries. Philosophers have done their best to answer it. Great thinkers from time immemorial have sought the answer. Almost everyone will have asked this question in some form or other in the course of their life on earth, yet none have found one answer that satisfies all.

Is this then such an important, crucial question that needs to be answered, if there is no one definite answer?

Why do we even ask this question in the first place? Wouldn't our lives be better off if we just continued doing what we were doing, and living the way we are living?

The time and energy spent in trying to answer this question in our own lives might be put to better use in doing something worthwhile.

Wait a minute.... our time and energy might be put to better use in doing somethingworthwhile?

Worthwhile and meaningful... isn't that the reason behind why we want to know the meaning of life? So that our lives can be worthwhile and meaningful?

Answering the Timeless Question

How does one even go about answering this question in the first place? And if we find an answer, how do we know it's the right answer?

Let's look at what we are trying to accomplish by answering this question. What we are really looking for is to feel that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. That we exist for a purpose.

We search for the answer to this question because we desire to know that our lives have been spent doing something worthwhile, and that at the end of our lives, we didn't just live a futile existence that meant nothing.

The only way that I know how to validate the answer that comes to me is by the way I feelabout the answer. If it doesn't resonate with me, then no matter how true the answer is forsomeone else, it isn't true for me.

No matter how intellectually "right" it may seem, if the answer doesn't touch or resonate with my inner being, then it doesn't make sense to accept that answer. Because if I were to follow that answer, it would lead me down a path that doesn't resonate with my soul, and at the end of the journey, I would have lived a life that made good intellectual sense but not goodemotionally and spiritual sense.

My life would have been right on the outside, but it would have been empty on the inside.

If I were to decide on an answer about the meaning of life, it would have to resonate both intellectually as well as emotionally/spiritually. It would have to be one with me, and I would have to be one with it.

Answering the Question

When we ask what the meaning of life is, we have to understand the context from which we will be answering the question. The question about meaning and purpose of life are tightly intertwined. When we understand and know our purpose, fulfilling that purpose gives our life meaning.

Without purpose, life would be a random, meaningless meandering from one place to another. By the time we reach the end of our journey, we'd have done very little worth remembering in our life.

And that's we're really trying to accomplish when we seek the meaning of life. We want to know if we are worth something, that we matter and make a difference in our short time on earth. Whether the difference had been positive, or negative, we want to know if our life matters.

To answer the question about the meaning of life, the biggest picture or context that we can look at is life itself.

How does life work? How does nature work? What's happening in the bigger scheme of life?

Nature herself is growing, evolving and adapting all the time. Nothing rests. There is movement in the day, there is movement in the night. From one angle, we could say that nature is about survival of the fittest. From another angle, we could also say that nature is about evolution, growth and adapting to change.

Everything in nature is beautifully made for a purpose. Everything exists in a balanced ecosystem. When that ecosystem is unbalanced, nature finds balance by adapting through destruction and re-creation. There is always growth, there is always the movement towards achieving balance and there is a cycle of life and death. A cycle of creation into destruction back into re-creation once more.

So it goes the same in human society. There is life, and death, and then new life is born again. There is a constant process of change and growth, as humanity seeks ever higher levels of living. Each new invention by humanity leads to the next invention. And the next invention leads to the next one, and so on. While there is growth and evolution, there is also always a movement towards finding balance in life.

When we realize that we are part of life, and that life is a part of us, and that because we are a part of life, we have the traits and characteristics of life.

We have an innate desire to be better. We desire to improve and to experience more life. The desire to experience more life can be in the mind, it can be in the body, or it can be in the soul. No one wants to be left behind when the train leaves the station, but in the pursuit of the train, we also seek balance in our lives. And when we have experienced as much as we can experience in the physical world, we desire to understand more about the life beyond the physical.

So How Do We Find Meaning?

We find meaning when we find joy and purpose in what we do. When we know what we do contributes in a meaningful way to the bigger picture of life, we can see how what we do has a purpose.

To find meaning in life, is to find your purpose in life. To find your purpose in life, is to understand where you fit in life. To find where you fit in life, is to understand what your talents, abilities, gifts and strengths are. To find where you can best use your gifts is to find where you have joy in the expression of your gifts. And when you have found joy in the expression of your gifts, you come back to the beginning of the circle where you started.

Where you find Joy, is where you find Meaning.

Darbright runs Personal Development Made Simple @ http://www.darbright.com, a website devoted to making a life of freedom and abundance possible through Personal Growth.

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