Lay Theism

The meaning of life is simple:

You have been granted a single life. You may choose to do with your life anything that you like. You give life meaning by choosing what you want to do with it.

That’s it… You, and only you, give your life its meaning.  It’s that simple.

What I find deeply meaningful and satisfying may be of little interest to you. Similarly, the things you cherish most in life may bore me to tears. Generally speaking, however, I would say that most people, including myself, find family relationships to be among life’s most meaningful aspects. But I respect others who might disagree with what I find most meaningful. The error in searching for one common meaning of life is to assume that every human being is wired the same way and sees the world the same. Every individual is different, and has a perfect right to be different.

What should you do with your life? You should pick whatever it is that you believe in, or whatever it is that makes you happy, or whatever it is that is most important to you, or whatever it is that you most enjoy doing. Then you should work to make it happen. Choose the thing or things that you want to do with your single, unique, precious, human life, and make those things happen.

It does not matter what it is that you choose to do — do whatever is important to you:

• If it is saving the environment, then go do that
• If it is making beautiful art for yourself and other to enjoy, do that
• If it is finding a cure for cancer, go do that
• If it is making a film about something that you feel strongly, do it
• If it is entertaining people to brighten their lives, go do that
• If it is making lots of money so that you can buy more stuff, go do that

And so on…

So how do we give life meaning? It is about loving and being loved. It is about helping and being helped. It is about giving and receiving, asking and accepting. It is about working with other people and allowing them to work with you. Life is about dreaming of something better, and then making it happen. Life’s meaning is about what we do today and tomorrow with the time we have available. It comes in thinking about that time — that precious moment that is your life — and making the most of it in a way that is unique to you.

The fact is that you, and only you, give your life its own, personal meaning. You can choose to do absolutely anything you like. Each life is unique to the human being who designs it, and the way you define your life’s meaning is up to you. This is how it always has been, and how it always will be. 

You can give your life whatever meaning you want. Pick whatever it is that is important to you. Decide what you think you can do to help your fellow human beings move forward, and then go do it in whatever way that you think is appropriate. It is your life and it lasts about 30,000 days if you’re lucky — make the most of it. 

Adapted from “Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees?“

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Tags: god, life, purpose

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Atheism, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.