What is the true meaning of life?
Despite naggingly tugging at the hems of philosophical and scientific query for as long as humans have had the capacity to ponder, I feel this age-old question can be answered rather simply; in fact, in one word. It does, however, take three variations of this word to answer the eternal question. But to begin, the answer to the meaning of life, in one word, is experience.
Your experience of life is made up of three variations on what may be defined as “experience.” These are:
- that which you experience in present time via your five senses – what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste;
- emotions you experience due to all that’s processed via your five senses – all of the joy, sadness, excitement, disappointment, etc.;
- learning lessons and growth gained, from that which you experience.
I. You experience in present time.
You experience life in the present. Incessantly ruminating on the past or fretting about the future pulls your attention away from what’s happening at this very moment, causing you to miss out on the full experience. What is the point of living if you’re not experiencing the life you lead? I’m not saying that you should cast aside past lessons or thoughtlessly refrain from planning for your future whatsoever. But once you’ve learned your lesson, you’ve learned it. Heck, you’ve got new things to learn. On to the next. As for angst over your future, if you aren’t paying attention to what you’re experiencing in the present, you may one day find you’ve planned for a future that doesn’t actually suit you at all. If you aren’t fully, consciously participating in the life you’re living, you may not know yourself as well as you think.
Consider this: it takes a great deal of time, thoughtfully listening, to actually get to know a person. Now, how much time do you spend truly listening to your innermost self? If you aren’t taking the time to sit with yourself in silence, lovingly forbidding your mind to run endlessly over this past issue or that possible future concern, to truly listen to your inner self, how well do you actually know yourself? Are the goals you’re striving toward yours, or have those seeds been planted in your mind throughout the years by a vagrant farmer, such as a family member or societal principle? Besides, whether you believe there is a divine plan, or you’re on the other end of the spectrum, and presume that the universe is completely random, you don’t in reality have control over your life. You have and make choices, and you have control over how you act and react, but you do not have control over the future. So, give the past and the future only the limited airtime needed, but don’t allow either to rent space in your head. The meaning of life is indeed experience, and that, you do in present time.
The meaning of life is simply, beautifully, unequivocally experience.
II. You experience emotions.
Combined with data procured by your five senses, your perception of life is built on memories of how people, places, events and interactions made you feel when the moment occurred. Things that don’t affect you tend not to remain in your mind for long, so when your emotions aren’t engaged during an event or interaction, it is less likely to become a piece in the puzzle that is your perception. The times you experience feelings of love, fear, anticipation, hope, jealousy, thrill … these are the conversations you find replaying over and over in your head. These are the locations that, upon entering, spring forth delightful (or dreadful) familiarity, blasting you with the same emotions you felt at the time the memory was created, as if you were experiencing it right there, again. These are the chance meetings of kindred spirits, human, animal or plant, where a powerful moment is shared and intrinsically understood, without words, altering both beings from that point forward.
Emotions – those in present time and those from the past which sealed the memories making up our perception – dictate how we make sense of and move through the world. If you felt neglect as a child, you may especially fear rejection and abandonment within your partnership, as an adult. You may even, unaware, choose partners who foster such feelings, because that is what you have experienced, so that is what you know. If you felt a rush of oneness with the universe the first time you touched the ocean, understanding at once that you were touching the ends of time — everything that has ever existed and everything that ever will — you may find that you must move there years later, altering where you call home and live your life altogether. Delicately woven, the emotions we experience are the threads that make up the fabric of our being; the ever-changing patterned cloak we wear, as we walk our life’s path.
III. You learn and grow from experience.
Every moment in this lifetime is an opportunity to create, learn and grow from the experience in which you’re taking part. In fact, this is how we earn wisdom. Where intelligence may be honed through education, wisdom is earned through experience. Whether you find the experience joyful, mundane, devastating, or even a joke, there is opportunity to learn. And how do you know when learning and growth from wisdom has become experience? Wisdom is experience which no longer triggers us — no longer causes us pain. What an excellent and clear measure of growth we have, as human beings! Most of us can remember back to times in our lives where we were ‘different people back then.’ Maybe you had a jealous streak in your heart as a teenager, so you found yourself creating scenarios and causing fights within relationships without reason. But as you’ve grown older, you’ve learned to truly love yourself, and no longer feel misplaced jealousy within your relationships. You no longer feel the heat rising in your chest and neck, the sickness in your stomach, or however you felt when you experienced jealousy, rage, fear of abandonment, etc. when you find yourself within scenarios that likely would’ve caused those emotions in the past. That’s experience from which you’ve learned and grown, and have now integrated into well-earned wisdom.
You’ll find that the greatest lessons you’re here to learn in this lifetime, sometimes even spanning across multiple lifetimes — those lessons focused toward your highest and greatest good — will play out over and over through the course of your life, until you’ve learned them. And even after you think you’ve learned your lesson, the universe will toss you another softball. Another test. Just to make sure. And once you’ve mastered this lesson, through these experiences all sewn together in the great quilt of existence, it’s onto the next lesson on the path of your soul’s journey.
For every human, in every way, the meaning of life may be described as experience. Whether you look at the soul from a mystical point of view, as infinite energy transcending spacetime and yearning to fully realize its divinity, or you view the soul from a religious perspective, ardently following the dictated beliefs and rules on which your denomination is based, or even if you don’t believe in a soul at all, settling more into the “lights out” mode of thinking, the same applies. The meaning of life is simply, beautifully, unequivocally experience.
