The Meaning of Life

As a person who likes to contemplate a lot, Life is one of those things I always think about. It's crazy I know, but sometimes I'd just sit in a corner late at night after a long day and would wonder why am I here and still breathing. I cant help but question even my mere existence, and it always lead me to a search for life's purpose and meaning. Sometimes I would search at google, or randomly ask friends, even strangers what is life for them, what is its meaning and how do they deal with it; or are they already at that point in life where they want to be, or what they envisioned their life to be as a means of evaluation and to generate valuable life lessons they can share with me.  Every time I do that, I'd just be surprised of how different life meaning is to everyone. Each person has his own definition, even famous authors of books I read, leaders, philosophers, artists, commoners, and people from different walks of life. So what is life? Let me share with you some of the meanings I've encountered from different sources along the way. 



Life Quotes and Definition 

According to Merriam, "life" \'līf\ (noun) is the ability to grow, change, etc,..; the period of time when a person is alive and the experience of being alive. That is the general meaning of the term "Life", being alive, but for everyone I know, its different. 

As I was reading Aleph, a novel written by the brazilian author Paulo Coehlo, it says, "To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.", well indeed true. It has a great blow on me ever since because its just what I've been doing lately. And being inspired after, the impact on me is just really deep, it has become my personal mantra, thus from "Live life to the fullest" it has become "To live is to experience". 

Lagaw Travelogue, a travel blogger and a friend of mine said,  "Life is twist, stretch and fold". I couldn't comprehend it at first but after thinking about it for some time, if finally dawned on me. A person's life is like a clothe(s), or just think about a shirt, that after being used and washed; when its soaked, shrunken and crumpled, it has to be twist, stretch and fold so it can be used again and serve its purpose. It sounds like a riddle but actually made a lot of sense. 

From an evangelist point of view, Brother Frank as what I used to call him, he said "To worship the Creator, Lord and Savior. To obey and give glory to Him. Because He created us in His image, it is our duty and responsibility to let Him be reflected through us" and that is his life meaning. Well, I couldn't agree more and I hope I can do the same as him. Life as a duty to serve God, out of our gratitude and love for Him, is a purposeful life worth living.

When I've met a person who seems to be broken, lost and has no sense of direction, he said "Life is eh and I feel "blah". Eh and blah? I stopped to think and pondered upon it. It was when I learned what he's done and what he is going through then I finally understand. Life is eh because it has no meaning for him, "Eh" is a word which has a general manifestation of his overall feeling of "blah" which means despair, pain and regrets in life for all the mistakes he has done in the past. An unusual way to put it but as what I've said, it is different for everyone, and well yeah it happens. It was after some time now and I hope Life is not eh for him anymore and he feels better than being blah. 

Well, there's so much to say about life. Van Gogh once asked, "What would life be if we have no courage to attempt anything?" Also, lot of people responded when I asked them, one said "To do good while we are here (on earth)" and another said "Life is what we make it". The list can go on and on but I can only include some for now. Hopefully, I can write another article for this one, to share a lot more of different life meaning is for everyone and to give an insight of how others view and see their life as an individual and in general. More importantly, to give us valuable lessons in dealing with life's ups and downs.

So how about you, what is the meaning of life for you?


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