There is an important distinction between leading a life that means something and the meaning of life. The first is an opinionated determination of whether we matter and if our life is worth living. The second is identifying why we exist. The latter helps positively with the former.
Life That Means Something
There are some popular conceptions about organizing lives that matter most to least: wealth, power, number of followers on social media, material assets (house size, how long it takes for your car to get from 0 to 60mph, number of shoes you own).
Wealth is one we have grown up with worldwide, where our life means more if we earn more and are able to make larger purchases. When we see someone with wealth, chances are we look at their lives as one worth having because the assumption is that because they have more money, they have no problems (although the opposite may be true).
It started with Facebook, and now it’s moved to Instagram and many other social media sites in use today. How can we show the world that we are interesting? If we are interesting, people pay attention to us, and if people pay attention to us, then we matter, and if we matter, then our life must have meaning.
But this is a backwards way to look at it, don’t you think? Our life cannot matter if and only if people pay attention to us. Some of us thrive as introverts with small circles of friends. Some of us revel in alone-ness. If we are isolated from the rest of the population, does that mean we cease to matter and thus have no meaning? There are many arguments, one of which is that for your life to have meaning, you must contribute positively to at least one other person in your lifetime. A follow-up conclusion from this argument would be: the more lives to which you contribute positively, the more your life means something. I don’t want to discuss the merits and flaws of this metric and what-ifs that arise with it, but the point is that are countless opinions and arguments on the balance of positive and negative consequences you must have on x amount of the population for your life to have meaning.
The Meaning of Life
Religion gives meaning to a lot of people. I’m not one of them, but that’s a topic for another post. All religions are a set of some values that people try to abide by – a set of common do’s and don’t’s that make sense to societies across the world. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t kill. Do good, help others, be kind and caring, make the world a better place. The prescription is easy; execution is what we find difficult.
It’s easy to point to the big picture and know we have to be good people and not kill others. That’s common sense. The problem is in the details – how are we supposed to make the world a better place? Does everyone have the same vision of making the world a better place? Of course not. So right there, this prescription starts falling apart. Everyone wants a unique itinerary for making it through the world, by contributing in their own special way. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, we sure hear about it.
When I visited my grandfather’s ashram on the outskirts of Delhi in December 2015, I had a chance to ask an enlightened man about his thoughts on the subject: “What is the meaning of life?” He replied,
“Just as a parent gives their child a toy to play with, expecting nothing in return but for the child to fully enjoy and appreciate what they have been given – this is how we have been given life as a gift, to do with as we please but make the most of it and to never lose our gratitude for being here.”
Hearing this immediately took away the pressures of what society expects of us in terms of a “successful life.” After all, what is a life with success – however you may define it – without fulfillment, happiness, and gratitude? I’m not saying, don’t strive for wealth, don’t strive for influence or power or fame or a large house and a fast car. This is a reminder that at the end of the day, none of those things matter, or will make you happy in the long term, unless you remember to be grateful for what you have.