This problem concerns not only ordinary people, but also writers, philosophers, religious thinkers, artists, poets and other great people. And some even devoted their entire lives to this study. But it is still not possible to accurately answer the questions: what is the meaning of life and what does it consist of?
The pressing question about the meaning of human life
What is the meaning of life? Probably, it will not be possible to find an exact answer to the question, since each person sees the world from his own point of view and thinks according to his views and preferences. To answer such a difficult question, first of all, you need to understand your purpose in this life.
The meaning of a person’s life will change throughout his life’s journey, since he will constantly be faced with different goals and tasks. They are mainly related to the level of residence and age of the individual.
For example, when a person becomes an adult, his goal is to earn as much money as possible in order to get on his feet and start a family and feed all its members. But when, by the age of forty, he already has all this, he is pursued by a new “mission” - to get on his feet and provide for his children. By the age of sixty, many people take care of their significant other, maintain their health and live for their own pleasure.
How to understand your meaning in life?
You can endlessly re-read hundreds of statuses from social networks about the meaning of life, but you can understand what really motivates each of us only by understanding yourself well.
Often, people who have experienced serious trials, such as, for example, an incurable disease, the loss of a loved one, or major bankruptcy, come to an understanding of their own destiny. Having experienced severe stress, they reassessed their values and stopped taking the life given to them for granted. Many of them found themselves in charity and helping those who faced a similar problem [The School of Life, 2021].
Fortunately, to understand the purpose of your existence, you don’t have to wait for bad events to happen. To do this, it is enough to devote a little time to reflection and introspection.
To determine what is truly close and important, you need to understand yourself well. It's worth asking yourself a number of questions :
- What brings me genuine joy?
- Why am I ready to wake up in the morning with pleasure?
- What tasks do I complete while in a state of flow?
- What am I not ready to live without for a day?
- What makes my life worth living?
- At what moments do I realize that I am truly happy?
- If I could do my dream job, what would it be?
It is important that the meaning of a person’s life is correlated with his true values and sincere interest. For example, not everyone cares about medicine or social work. Some people find fulfillment in helping those in need, while others define professional fulfillment or spiritual growth as their highest value.
Meaning for different people can lie in different moments: in supporting a football team, in conquering new mountain peaks, in conscious parenting, in music, in helping others, in finding truth through philosophy, etc. But the characteristic feature of all these examples is a consciousness that is positively and constructively absorbed, involved, expanded and realized [Philosophy Now, 2021].
You can get to know yourself even better using the right techniques and questions in the online Self-Knowledge program. Correct reflection allows you to determine not only the meaning of life, but also to understand your strengths, which will help you realize this meaning. Having found answers to many questions, you realize what is important, close and valuable to you.
While there is no single meaning, each person can live his life in such a way that each day brings him as much satisfaction as possible. As Konrad Lorenz put it: “Life itself is a process of learning.” According to this interpretation of evolution, the essence of life is the pursuit of knowledge: knowledge about the real world, which is constantly tested for relevance to this world [Philosophy Now, 2021].
What works and is in this sense “true” is preserved. Life, according to the scientist, is proven knowledge that has stood the test of geological time. From this perspective, accepting the pursuit of knowledge as a possible meaning in life seems literally a natural choice [Philosophy Now, 2021].
Is it possible to live without a goal in life?
Some people do not understand the meaning of life and therefore live without it. But such individuals lack internal motivation and are unlikely to achieve anything in their lives. After all, if a person does not set goals for himself, it is difficult for him to strive for an ideal life. If a person does not understand what the meaning of his life is, he becomes weak and it is very difficult for him to achieve and achieve something.
If a person does not understand what his meaning in life is, then it is very easy to manage him and make decisions for him, since often such people do not have their own opinion. As a result, individuality suffers, and he ceases to manifest himself as a person.
According to psychologists, those people who do not see the purpose of their lives often become drunkards, become depressed or commit suicide. To prevent this from happening to you, you need to make goals, plans in your life and understand why you live on earth.
Why is it so important to find meaning?
Moving along the path of life, every person strives for something. Some simply “go with the flow”, obeying generally accepted patterns of behavior. Others try to build their lives on their own terms. At the same time, everyone is driven by some goal (low or sublime).
Note! Those who live day after day, content with little, are unlikely to look for the essence in life. For comfort, it is enough for them to satisfy their physiological needs.
A person who comprehends his existence is always in search, trying to find his true purpose. It helps:
- find yourself and determine your path in life;
- increase the value of a person as an individual;
- build a hierarchy of life priorities;
Life priorities
- unlock the potential inherent in nature;
- make life multifaceted, unique and fulfilling.
Having correctly placed the landmarks, a person confidently moves along them. Having understood their purpose, people make life unique, free from boredom. It is the meaning, its understanding that does not allow you to waste your days.
The purpose of man from a philosophical point of view
Perhaps philosophy is the first science that studies what the meaning of life is. But even here there are disputes, since each philosopher has his own point of view, which he is ready to defend.
Philosophers constantly strive for some ideals and create their own models of behavior. The most popular postulates about the meaning of human life are the following:
1. In ancient philosophy there were the following thoughts:
- Aristotle saw the meaning of human life in obtaining happy emotions;
- Epicurus considered the meaning of human life to be pleasure;
- Diogenes saw meaning in life only when it came to peace of mind.
2. In the philosophy of the Middle Ages, when thinking about what the meaning of human life is, they answered this way: this is the study of the lives of descendants and following their examples.
3. But philosophers of the twentieth century saw the meaning of human life in something else. And here too there are disagreements:
- irrationalists believed that the meaning of human life lies in the fight against death and suffering;
- existentialists argued that the meaning of a person’s life depends only on himself;
- and positivists do not consider this a problem as such.
Drawing up a plan for your development
- Based on an analysis of your own personality, clarify your goals;
- Determine the goals that are of paramount importance;
- They must meet your capabilities, qualifications, abilities, and available time;
- Determine the sequence of work, the methods used to achieve the goal;
- Divide all tasks into stages and determine the deadline for completing each of them;
- Monitor the implementation of intermediate stages;
- After solving any task, analyze it and note what you did well and what you did poorly.
Goals in human life from a religious point of view
No matter what era of time a person talks about, people have always tried to understand their purpose and determine what the meaning of human life is. Religion has also devoted a lot to this problem. It is safe to say that people who lived a hundred years ago and those who live today have completely different goals, since the world does not stand still and is constantly changing. Those customs, traditions and foundations that were fashionable many years ago are unlikely to be appreciated today by modern youth.
If we talk about religion, Christianity is most concerned about the question of the meaning of human life. If we consider this topic at a religious level, then we cannot help but talk about such concepts and definitions as God, Jesus, the Fall, and the salvation of the soul. Many people are concerned about this problem and this trend will continue for several years.
Balance of positive and negative qualities
Before you set a life goal, there are some things you need to do.
Imagine that your family has decided to build a summer house.
First, you need to calculate whether, and if so, when, you will be able to raise the money needed to build it. You must realistically assess your financial situation.
This means comparing your systematic income and expenses, calculating how much money you have saved and how much debt you have. It is also necessary to take into account where and how you can increase income and, conversely, reduce expenses.
In addition, you also need to consider how much time you can devote to construction. What materials are needed and how long it will take to implement the plan.
Only after carrying out such an “inventory” can you begin to implement the plan.
Something similar needs to be done regarding your life goals, desires and plans.
Here you also need to take an “inventory”, but this time of the content of your personality: analyze which positive qualities of yours will help you implement your plans and desires and negative ones that may hinder you.
Which qualities need to be developed or acquired, and which ones need to be eliminated in order to achieve success.
“Spiritual elite” of the meaning of life
To understand what the meaning of human life on earth is, you need to consider another point of view, which is called the spiritual elite. The meaning of this elite can be called that people should save everything that surrounds them and attract humanity to everything spiritual and cultural. For example, Nice said that the meaning of human life is that it is necessary to give birth to geniuses, thereby increasing the culture of your country and continuing your family. Jaspers also spoke about this, who believed that people should be an example for each other. The meaning of human life, in his opinion, was also to rid the world of orphanhood by doing a good deed for children. And all children should grow up in full-fledged families.
How to achieve success
Most experts agree that the person who succeeds is the one who already has some success.
And this is quite natural, since he believes in himself, in his strength. For him, every small success is a stepping stone to the next, larger one.
Anyone who has not experienced any success does not have such opportunities. This is evident from the first years of schooling.
Students who achieve good results in their studies successfully graduate from school, but those who have not experienced success, who do not believe in themselves, generally resign themselves to their role as underachievers and with great difficulty “crawl” from class to class, and often end up out school.
Therefore, the task of teachers is to give weak students the opportunity to feel success and self-confidence.
The thing you succeed in itself is not as important as the fact that you succeeded. This gives you self-confidence and faith in your strength.
Therefore, try to remember past success more often and, most importantly, remember the feelings that you experienced at the same time.
This creates a certain “success habit”. With each subsequent success, remember the previous ones and thus strengthen your sense of self-confidence.
Learn more from your successes than from your failures. Of course, when analyzing any completed case, you must find out where you did the right thing and where you made a mistake.
Once you realize your mistakes, try to avoid them in the future. But this is where thoughts of failure should end.
Do a better job of analyzing the methodology for completing successfully completed tasks in order to protect yourself from failures in the future.
And of course, you have to love what you do and move forward step by step.
Inspiration is a necessary thing, but no amount of inspiration will help if, having taken on some business, we do not persistently move forward in it, step by step.
We will definitely fail, and this will discourage any endeavor at all.
For example, this is how weightlifters train. They lift a light weight at first and then gradually increase it by adding plate after plate to the bar. You should do the same.
Do not overestimate your strengths and abilities, otherwise you will be disappointed and lose faith in the future.
Develop the habit of responding to failures and troubles with optimism.
In an annoying situation, don’t give up; on the contrary, actively look for a way out of it.
After some time, such activity in difficult situations, as well as when solving problems, will become natural for you. The habit will begin to work so that when you find yourself in a similar situation again, you will automatically take a proactive position.
And vice versa, the one who in such a situation lost faith in his own strength, was passive, will behave the same way in the future in similar circumstances. All problems seem smaller once we stand up to them and try harder to solve them.
Hedonism and human destiny
Hedonism also studies what the meaning of human life is. And his answers to this question are not very different from other sciences. The founders of this movement can be called Aristippus and Epicurus, who argued that in life a person should experience only positive emotions, and if something negative happens, it has a bad effect on life as a whole.
They also argued that all living things on earth are drawn to enjoy and take everything from life. In other words, their theory is to create beauty on earth.
But there were many objections according to this trend. As scientists say, hedonists see the meaning of human life only in the pursuit of happiness and nothing else. To some extent this definition is correct. But on the other hand, as practice shows, a person who commits an action does not always think whether it is good or bad. After all, most often, a person first does something, and only then thinks about what he did, and it doesn’t matter whether he committed a bad or good deed. Sometimes people even deliberately do things that are associated with torment, suffering and even mortality - in order to punish each other.
It is worth understanding that each person is individual, and what seems positive to one may bring a lot of grief and disappointment to another.
Kant considered the definition of hedonism conditional. And when asked what the meaning of human life is, he answered differently. Kant believed that the destiny of man lies in the desire to develop good will. This is the only way to achieve perfection.
The main meaning of life through the eyes of contemporaries
It is obvious that it is impossible to give any one answer to the question about life purpose. For some, children are the main meaning of life, others strive for worldwide fame and fame, and still others want to save the lives of other people.
In this case, it is worth asking the question: “Why exactly do I want this? Why do I need all this? If you just want to become famous throughout the world, you need the help of a psychologist, because you lack love and attention, and besides, you apparently suffer from low self-esteem. Of course, no one will dissuade a person from striving for world fame, but first you need to correct these complexes in yourself, which in the future can become a serious obstacle.
3 steps towards limitless possibilities!
If the goal is to be happy, you need to divide it into smaller ones, which can be as follows:
- Health. What does it mean to be healthy? First, analyze your habits. Are there any among them that you can safely refuse? Avoid smoking and start doing exercise or running in the park for at least five minutes a day. Of course, you shouldn’t rush to the gym and lift iron until you die. Swimming and regular visits to the gym will completely correct the situation and give you vitality and energy. If the goal is not new world records, but improved health, you are on the right track. Sound sleep is essential for good health. Remove unhealthy foods from your diet and replace them with healthy ones. There is no need to immediately switch to greens and raw vegetables. Look on the Internet for healthy food recipes - you will be surprised, but there are a lot of really tasty ones among them.
- Well-being. Probably, when most people hear the words “wealth” and “prosperity,” they imagine a situation where they are told that somewhere far overseas lived a rich second cousin who left a multimillion-dollar inheritance, and now you will be provided for for life. A beautiful fairy tale and nothing more. In order to increase your income, you can go in several ways: find a job with a high salary and/or adjust your expenses. Perhaps you have long dreamed of changing your occupation, of expanding your skills. The time has come for this.
- Family. Marriage for the sake of a stamp in your passport will not lead to anything good. Getting married or marrying the first person you meet without love is a so-so option that certainly will not make you and your other half happy. Look for that person with whom you will truly feel good. This could be a friend of your work colleague or a good friend of a former classmate. The main thing is to be interesting to people and radiate positive energy. Remember: like attracts like.
On the meaning of human life according to Unitarianism
The question of what the meaning of life is was also studied by the theory of Unitarianism. The main representatives of this theory can be called the philosophers Mill and Bentham. Bentham saw the meaning of human life in beauty and in receiving pleasure from it. But he understood that a person can become happy and have pleasure only if he avoids all torment and suffering, and this is very difficult to achieve. In his opinion, it was possible, using a mathematical formula, to calculate how happy a person is or, conversely, dissatisfied. As Mill argued, the meaning of human life lies in happiness. But as he said, for a person to be happy, not only he, but also all the people who surround him must experience positive emotions.
Needs and meaning
When the basic needs (physiological and safety) are satisfied, then the person seeks to satisfy other needs. Without a larger context, we are primed to respond to our physiological needs, safety, and belonging.
Goals need a larger context to be important and meaningful and to make us deeply happy. In fact, it is a context that includes self-esteem, achievement, and self-mastery.
The need for respect corresponds to recognition and self-confidence. In terms of need for achievement, it means that a person is working towards realizing his or her own potential.
Finally, the need to surpass oneself implies the renunciation of one's own needs associated with reasons external to oneself.
According to Maslow, a fully developed person will be guided by values that transcend his or her personality while serving others.
L. N. Tolstoy's reasoning about the purpose of man
L.N. Tolstoy in his works often touched upon the question: what is the meaning of human life. And the writer’s head was completely filled with his decision. After much thought, Tolstoy realized that the purpose of human life lies in the self-improvement of the individual. As the writer argued, in order to live correctly and honestly, you need to constantly fight both with yourself and with the world around you.
For your information, L.N. Tolstoy is not only an amazing and talented writer, he is also an outstanding philosopher. He owns many quotes and popular expressions. He believed that before you understand what the meaning of life is, you need to understand what life is. It was this definition that he interpreted in his works. But he devoted most of the pages to studying this issue in his epic novel War and Peace. It is after reading it that many people begin to think and understand what life really is.
Life goals and plans
When planning your own life, you should take into account that it is almost impossible to change the environment around us, but you can change your attitude towards the surrounding reality and not let it defeat us.
Planning our life simply means deciding what kind of person we want to become.
In striving to implement our plans, we must proceed from our own capabilities.
Of course, we cannot plan more distant goals with absolute accuracy. However, our immediate goals must be formulated precisely.
In order to have enough strength and patience to gradually approach a distant goal, the path to achieving it should be divided into several stages: firstly, this facilitates control, and secondly, it brings us a feeling of satisfaction from what has been achieved.
Often distant goals undergo certain changes, which is associated with changes in the situation in society, our living conditions, needs and ideas. Therefore, when formulating long-term life goals and making your plans, you always need to take into account the specific conditions in which we live.
There is one more condition for drawing up a life plan: the more interests, the more varied the goals.
There are people who have had a difficult life, and yet they always remain optimistic. Sharing their life experiences with you, they will say: “I survived all the disappointments and disappointments that I encountered along the path of life because I never put everything, as they say, on one horse.”
In other words, you can’t “put all your eggs in one basket.”
The more hobbies a person has, the more different goals he can set for himself, the more steadfastly he can withstand failures and disappointments: if one horse fails, he will change to another.
It happens that someone is unlucky at work. Here, perhaps, it would be nice to retrain and do something else. But no, the person becomes stubborn, holds on to his place and only torments himself and others, while his knowledge and abilities could be of good use in another job.
Hence the moral: in life you cannot always subordinate everything to one goal.
We need to have more interests and knowledge, and this will give us the opportunity to express ourselves in various fields. Then there will be no tragedies if one of the set goals is for some reason not realizable: it doesn’t matter, because there are a number of others in stock, no less important.
What literature says about the purpose of humanity
The role of literature in a person’s life is difficult not to appreciate, because books have been able to educate more than one generation, many people learn from them, look for their ideals in them and find their favorite heroes. But unfortunately, lately people very rarely think about books. But thanks to them, you can live real emotions and feel the fate of the heroes.
Many works contain reflections on the purpose of humanity. As statistics show, writers most of all agree that the goal of human destiny lies in the eternal. As Ecclesiastatus states, the meaning of human life lies in something meaningless and a constant rush to get somewhere. He says that love, understanding and happiness have nothing to do with this reasoning.
People are looking for the answer to this question in both domestic and foreign literature. Very often, writers in their works show what a person’s goal really is, and not just assumptions. At the same time, the works end on a bitter note, but no matter how sad it is, it is there that we can observe how people really live. After all, often when a person searches for the purpose of his life, it ends tragically for him. Sometimes, trying to achieve the truth, a person has to face cruel injustice and thereby suffer.
What does “life without meaning” mean?
Some seem to spend their entire lives unfulfilled, constantly searching for purpose. Philosopher Iddo Landau suggests that every person has everything necessary for a full existence. In his opinion, people are mistaken when they feel that life is meaningless. The mistake is based on their inability to understand what is truly important. Instead, they are overly focused on what they believe is missing to exist fully [Quartz, 2018].
“To my surprise, most of the people I talked to about the essence of meaning in life told me that they didn't think their lives were meaningful enough. Many even imagined their lives to be frankly meaningless,” writes the philosopher. “But I often found the reasons my interlocutors gave for their views problematic. Many, I thought, were not asking the appropriate questions that could change their views, or take actions that could improve their condition. Most people who complained about the meaninglessness of life found it difficult to even explain what they meant by this concept” [The Philosophers' Magazine, 2018].
In other words, Landau believes that people who feel like they are living life aimlessly are actually misunderstanding the issue. He became one of many thinkers who, over many centuries, tried to figure out what a meaningful life is (Quartz, 2018).
The opinions of philosophers on this matter are numerous, varied and, to varying degrees, practical. The famous thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, said that this question has no meaning in itself, because in the middle of life a person is not able to determine whether his life has meaning, and it is not possible to go beyond the process of existence to find the answer [ Quartz, 2018].
Iddo Landau believed that anyone who believes that life is meaningless also recognizes the importance of value. In other words, if a person thinks that his life is devoid of any meaning, then he believes that there is such a thing as value [The Philosophers' Magazine, 2018].
Many popular statuses about living with meaning claim that absolutely everyone is able to change the value of their life through practice, effort, action and reflection. The philosopher notes that the world is changeable: people change their place of residence, make acquaintances, gain interesting experience and knowledge, and encounter new ideas. As a person changes, his values change, as well as his goals and meaning in life.
For life to not be meaningless, it does not have to be unique at all. According to Landau, believing that uniqueness is associated with meaning is another mistake that many make. This misconception, in his opinion, “leads some people to unnecessarily consider their lives to be insufficiently meaningful and miss ways to give it meaning” [Quartz, 2018].
Admittedly, this is important in several areas: for example, in creativity, value also depends on originality, since simply repeating what other artists have already created does not make sense.
Likewise, scientific achievements are valued for their originality and innovation. Blindly repeating someone else's conclusions has little value. And this, of course, means that at the time of presentation of scientific results they must be unique.
However, for the most part, uniqueness is not important in determining the meaning of life. Thus, for example, the love between parents and children is valuable not because it is different from the love between other parents and infants, but because of its warmth and emotional closeness.
Thus, focusing on uniqueness is another mistake in defining value. This mistake leads some people to unnecessarily consider their life to be insufficiently meaningful and thereby miss ways to give it meaning.
The presence or, conversely, absence of meaning is determined by the values that are important to a person. Based on them, he determines whether his life is a success or not. For example, parents who have lost their child in a car accident find it difficult to perceive the present reality in the previous context. They may only see meaning in life again if they find other things that they feel are of high enough value (such as having or adopting a child).
Someone begins to consider their existence meaningless because they cannot achieve certain career heights in their work. For such people, the main or only important issue remains achieving excellence in their career. This blinds them to other issues that may be relevant. That is why they begin to feel the purposelessness of their existence.
It is important to note this close relationship between meaningfulness and value because it provides many insights that may be useful for people who feel their lives are not meaningful enough.
People's views on the meaninglessness of life can often be wrong. Some people unfairly believe that they are bad parents, while others incorrectly believe that their parenting methods are perfect. Some people unreasonably think that the art they create is not very good, while others mistakenly believe that they create masterpieces. Someone, for example, underestimates or overestimates their own sense of humor, knowledge, or ability to play a musical instrument.
This type of misjudgment occurs in many areas. This means that the same thing can happen with determining the meaning of life. Surprisingly, many people who consider their lives to be insufficiently meaningful are absolutely sure that this is so. They are convinced that their ideas about this must be accurate and reliable.
Noting that meaning in life is based on values, a person also focuses on bringing it through specific actions. To make your existence more meaningful, you need to improve what is valuable.
You can bring new values into life, increase, re-realize or re-evaluate existing values. Many people, including those who feel like they're wasting their time aimlessly, devote more time and effort in one evening to thinking about which movie to see than to thinking about what could add more meaning to their lives.
Landau argued that meaning is a feeling of significance that everyone determines for themselves independently, based on different aspects - relationships, creativity, achievements in a certain field or generosity and other opportunities [Quartz, 2018].
For those who are concerned about the issue of living life meaninglessly, Iddo Landau suggests rethinking and searching for meaning in other things. So, for example, if a person does not feel meaning in life because he has not been fulfilled in his profession, he should try to find it in his other endeavors, such as relationships, volunteer work, travel or creative activity. Also, according to the philosopher, he should take a closer look at what he is doing - perhaps something significant and valuable is already happening in his life, to which he is not yet paying due attention.
Completing any task requires motivation
Before we begin solving any problem, we must ask ourselves the question: why do we need this, why do we want to achieve one or the other?
That is, we must motivate both setting a goal and our desire to achieve it.
This is especially true for long-term tasks.
One of the most important motivators is interest in the business. We must always try to understand more deeply what we are doing, seek advice from knowledgeable people, and study the relevant literature.
All this will contribute to the development of sustainable motivation for our actions. Work will become easier and more interesting, and even turn into an activity for us that we will value above all else.
You shouldn’t forget about this when you take on self-improvement. You need to understand in advance what you will achieve as a result, for example, of physical training or learning languages.
Only after this start self-improvement. When executing a plan, think about the consequences of its implementation. This also contributes to the development of appropriate motivation.
Satisfaction with life depends on our attitude towards it. We either notice only the negative around us, and therefore are always dissatisfied with something, or, on the contrary, we notice first of all the positive, and thanks to this we find in life a lot of interesting, joyful, bringing pleasure and joy.
If it seems to you that you only meet unpleasant people in your life, uninteresting work, unlikable people, etc., then it depends on you.
In every person, in every event, in any work, if you want, you can always find something interesting, and, conversely, if you want, only negative.
You can rejoice at a good sunny day, which has come after a long cloudy period, after rains and downpours, and you can swear that the heat is bothering you and the sun is hitting your eyes.
You can be happy with the work you have completed or be horrified in advance that after this work another one awaits you.
In conclusion, we emphasize: in everything you do, try to motivate accordingly. Only then will you achieve that your work will interest you or even delight you and you will do it with pleasure.
