The Meaning Of Life, and your hints and tips for a fuller existence

burner69

burner69

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OK folks, I'm nearly 20 and am about to embark on my second attempt at university (some of you may know the ins and outs of this, basically, the first one sucked so I moved). I've done a lot of different things in my life, and have a lot of things planned, I'm just curious as to what everyone makes out of life, what you think the best thing to do with our 76 years on earth (average-ish).

Is the meaning of life to....

* Work hard and raise a family?
* Reach your potential?
* Get good at whatever you enjoy?
* Party?
* Be kind and good to everyone?
* Travel?
* Express yourself in a song/book/movie?
* All of the above?

Well, when I was a young lad I was a good guy, did all my school work and such like, but it hardly felt like a life enhancing experience.
Then I moved on to the work hard play hard stage. I worked a nice 5 day a week job, and it was a sweet job, and I partied most nights for a year. Plenty of booze, plenty of women, and it was all good at that particular moment, but is something I rarely think about now, and when I do I hardly think that it was what my life was 'meant' for.
I'm currently a student who enjoys raving. I'm trying to be a good guy all over again, being nice and polite, sensitive to other people's feelings while at the same time watching out for my own, and although it's taken a while (6+ months) I'm finally starting to feel like this is far more 'right' than getting lashed and going with random gals, or working hard at school.
And my plans? Well, I've got 3 years at uni to look forward to, with plenty of things to do, to try, to take etc. And then when I'm done, work for a year then check the world out, see if I can make some more sense of it.

So? My hints n' tips for life?
* Be nice to people, and screw folk who laugh at you for it.
* Don't take the opposite sex lightly, they aren't there for fun, someday your conscious will catch up with you :upstare:
* Do what you want to do, not what other's expect.

What about you?
Let's hear um!
 
Learn to do the important things first before relaxing, which I haven't done yet. *goes back to playing games instead of studying for exam.*
 
Ive found that existence itself has very little point. We're just a collection of dust and gasses able to defy entropy.
 
I'm 18 and moving into college (one known to be a major party school) this fall, and I too have thought about what I want to do with my life. I think we all have to decide this for ourselves because there's no absolute best way to live. There's pros and cons to every lifestyle, or otherwise people wouldn't live them. But for myself at least, I almost arbitrarily decided to almost completely refrain from drinking, partying and other sorts of licentious activities in college. I've done some crazy stuff in the past, but just to see what it's like and to make sure I'm not missing out on something incredible. Now I want none of it anymore.

Why did I decide this? Well first of all I strongly believe after a lot of thinking and researching on various religions, that spirituality is a bunch of guesswork. First I decided that I want a definite direction in my life. That led to my decision to not simply live for pleasures, but rather use my time here to become very knowledgeable in all sorts of areas (especially my major). I don't have a superiority complex or anything, and I respect those who mostly want to go to college only to party, but I'm choosing to live this way instead. I can't see any definite reason we should live any specific sort of way, so I just picked this, and I plan on sticking with it.

Your questions (as they apply to me):
* Work hard and raise a family?
work hard- yes. family- maybe eventually
* Reach your potential?
yes
* Get good at whatever you enjoy?
yes
* Party?
nope
* Be kind and good to everyone?
yes
* Travel?
maybe
* Express yourself in a song/book/movie?
probably not
 
spookymooky said:
Ive found that existence itself has very little point. We're just a collection of dust and gasses able to defy entropy.
Click to expand...

Yes, but we must give it meaning.
 
* Get good at what you enjoy doing
* Find some hot girl that loves you
* Don't listen to teachers telling you what course you should take, choose the path YOU want to do, even if you think the teacher makes sense.
 
Dont eat anything larger then your own head and if you happen to travel back in time dont touch anything.
 
Chase your dreams, kid. You've only got one shot at life. Chase your dreams before they rust.

-Angry Lawyer
 
In my view there is no true meaning of life. Nothing is born with a pre-determined goal set by a higher power. For animals that can't make decisions there only purpose (if you could call it that) would be to survive and reproduce, and that is only because it is the only thing they know how to do. For humans who can make decisions we define our own purpose (if we even want one) as individuals.
 
For every winner, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of them.

So remember that... you're a loser!

It helped me to become a better person! :bonce:
 
The Mullinator said:
In my view there is no true meaning of life. Nothing is born with a pre-determined goal set by a higher power. For animals that can't make decisions there only purpose (if you could call it that) would be to survive and reproduce, and that is only because it is the only thing they know how to do. For humans who can make decisions we define our own purpose (if we even want one) as individuals.
Click to expand...
just something I wrote a little while ago:

Free Will

It doesnt really seem to make sense to me. The idea is that we are endowed with the ability to make our own choices. At first this seems to be the case, after all, I'm choosing to write this blog right now, right?

Maybe not.

Why do I make a decision? There seem to be two causes: my natural inclinations, and my prior experiences, including prior decisions. There might also be some random firing of neurons and such thrown in there.

All of these things are out of my control. Obviously I didnt have a hand in choosing my genetics. As far as experiences go, I cant control my enviorment. My earliest decisions were a result of instinct and enviorment. While my later and current decisions resulted from those.

Thinking is itself a choice: to begin thinking, what to think about, etc. Thus, thinking is not a variable in the choosing, it is choosing.

If all this is true, if choosing relies on genetics, experience, and chance, and if all these are out of our control, choosing is not within our control. It is not something we can truly do. Its like pulling your hand of a hot stove: just a reflex.
 
The meaning of life is to love your job, be a good consumer, spend all your money so the economy will bloom and Democracy will prevail!!!
 
The original meaning of life was, in fact, to breed.

But your meaning of life should be discovered by you alone.
 
Don't get caught up in politics. Your life will be much richer.
 
i think the meaning of life is to find meaning in life. It sounds strange to say, but I believe it. I don't thing we're some random collection of gas and dust as previously noted, but we have been placed here by some Higher Being. I'm Catholic and I attend mass, but I'm not some religious fanatic. Sure I grew up in a Catholic household, forcibly attending mass, but I've been living on my own for several years now and I still believe in it. Otherwise I would think it would be a waste of time better spent playing hl2 or the bf2 demo. we all have to find our meaning in life whether it's better spent helping our fellow man (my belief - why i'm in med school) or whether it's better spent helping ourselves, which could still turn out to help our fellow man.

on a different note:
Along with spookymooky I don't think we come to decisions a priori (before experience), but rather a posteriori(after experience). But at the moment of decision, knowing what we normally choose on 99 times out of 100, we can still take the "road less traveled"(Frost) even if we know it's the wrong route. Your intuition, your experiences may all be pointing in one direction, but you choose the opposite out of a whim, which i think could be considered free will. Sure, our free will may be "diluted" by our genetics and our experiences, but i think at some level we still hang on some precipice with each decision. Do we let go or keep hanging there?

kinda long sorry
 
f*ck everything that moves, and many things that don't
die young of several STDs and get a cool tombstone
 
* Kill them before they kill you
* Stop, drop, and roll
* Don't drink and drive
* Always make sure they're dead
* Learn how to do abortions. You never know when the anti-christ will possess your friend.
* Dare to be stupid
* um...avoid bad things
* If it tastes good, if'll make you fat
* If it feels good, you'll get some weird disease from it
* If you like them, they'll be run over by a truck
* If you don't like them, they persist indefinitely and become your roommate
* There are lots of other people to prevent forest fires, don't worry about it
* Don't make another "realistic" FPS, RPG/FPS hybrid, Stargate SG-1, or mecha mod. Seriously. DON'T.
* MMO's are stupid. Not really a tip, but a helpful hint.
* Kill bums and sell their organs on the black market for money. The guy behind the Carl's Jr. can set you up, he's got the 'nections.
* If you need a job, try to get that job where you kick people in the nuts and then tell them they're on TV. But they aren't. You don't get paid, but 62% of working professionals say their job satisfaction is worth more than their pay.
* Apparently, many view the eating of aborted fetuses as "uncouth". Dress them up to look like game birds.
* Ignore me
 
I'm compelled by something to give a quasi-serious response. Normally I resist this urge, but not this time apparently.

My thoughts on the matter: purpose is a mental construct. It probably arises out of the mentality required to use tools, but I'm just throwing that out. Something to philosophise over I guess. Anyway, I'm getting distracted - since purpose is a purely metaphysical construct, our assignment of it effectively creates it. Naturally this can be a potent ability, so it's worthwhile to think carefully before doing so if it's at all possible.

It's interesting to note though, that it seems many people seem to "miss" - they're searching for a meaning of life because what they were doing before made their lives feel empty. Maybe I'm belaboring a point, but couldn't you make the goal "have a fulfilling life"? Sure you'd have to work on the strategy, but you'd have a goal now.

Personally I find self-improvement to be pretty fulfilling, so that's a major aspect of my strategy - even if I don't always follow it. More importantly though, don't get sidetracked on the wrong thing. It's incredibly difficult to change once you've started (as I'm sure you've noticed) - try to use that to your advantage.

Last before I post and get some sleep - STOP HAVING BABIES!

...Invader Zim quote...sorry ;/
 
I don't think there is a meaning of life as per say, but the best things you can do in life is to help your fellow man, raise a family and first and formost
ENJOY YOURSELF
 
I'm going to say what my dad says to me all the time:

Be happy, Be cool, and above all don't worry.

It's probably from some movie, but I don't know what.
 
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)
 
There isn't one! so make your own :D

Off the top of my head, this is something I came up with:
"The meaning of life is to do whatever you feel the need to do, as long as you feel as though your life was meaningful."

...Or something along the lines of that.
 
I liken existence to a prison cell. we are all in the same prison cell, some of us accept that this is all there is to life and make the best of it making ourselves feel good in whatever way we can. Some believe that after they die in the prison cell, some higher being will wisk them away to a better place. But religions like chrisitianity are just pills people take so they don't go insane in life. but Faith is deadly. I'm not closeminded against all religions, but I have yet to see any supernatural proof of any.

I think ones biggest goal in life should be to prolong ones life in whatever way possible. keeping the mind open to any possibility. If you think this life is the extent of your life, that is being closeminded. If you are serious about having a full existence, open up your mind to crazy possibilities. Do you think its crazy to think that you could become immortal? Do you think its crazy that you could form ties with higher beings to prolong your life? I know this probably sounds very cheesy to some, but if you are serious about not just living in a prison cell and dying in a prison cell, you might want to explore some new avenues. Just know that your odds of future survival are lower by not at least trying to find some higher truth in life.

I'm telling ya, you can't go wrong with this open-minded outlook.
 
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