3 Things That Give Life Meaning

Life is quite a difficult topic to talk about. Depending upon the state of mind and the state of being, view stands could possibly vary from intellectual to philosophical to the language of a layman.

Meaning and purpose of life are two of the most basic yet vague questions that have not been answered to date in the age of modern tech and quantum physics. Despite reaching Mars, we are stuck in our basic philosophy of why we live and what it means to exist in the first place.

Starting out with Tolstoy, although he declared the rationality of life a complete absurdity, there still are men who have found life meaningful in some of the nastiest and brutal situations.

Dr. Viktor Frankl was one of those men who found meaning in the death camps of Auschwitz during the Nazi invasion.

His experience was one of being stripped down to his bare naked existence and suffering to the most extreme degrees where every day he woke up and only one of two things could happen, either he would be enslaved under physically torturous and psychologically humiliating and degrading conditions or murdered by sending to the gas chambers.

Because of these unthinkably horrific conditions, along with the fact that there was no end in sight, many people just committed suicide.

After his camp was liberated in 1945, Viktor Frankl went on to live for 52 more years and became one of the most influential psychologists.

He shared his insights about his questions about the meaning of life in his works. He concluded that life is meaningful, and if there is any meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in life under all circumstances. He made three main arguments for why human life is meaningful.

1. We Die

The fact that our lives are finite makes them more meaningful. If our lives were not finite, if we did live forever, then our time wouldn’t matter that much. We would always have more of it, but the fact that our time here is finite makes that time precious. It makes it meaningful.

2. Time Is Unidirectional

Another argument for why life is meaningful is that time runs in one direction. There are no do-overs.

If you imagine an existence where you could do it over or you could lie your head on your pillow at night and think to yourself, you know what, let me try that day again. I didn’t speak as sweetly as I meant to. So let me just do that over.

If that were possible, then, yeah, your moments would not be all that meaningful. Mainly because you would always have the chance to do it over.

But that’s not how life is. We don’t get do-overs and therefore what’s happening now and what we choose to do now matters very much. It has tremendous meaning because we can’t do it again. Whatever we do becomes a ring in the infinite chain of cause and effect.

3. We Are Unique

The third argument for why life is meaningful is the fact that every human being is completely unique. The combination of every individual’s nature and experiences has rendered them a truly once-ever phenomenon and therefore has made them capable of doing things in the world and loving people in the world in a way, with a quality, that cannot be replicated.

If you liked what you read, I’m sure you’d like my other pieces on such juicy topics where I merge Psychology, Philosophy, History, and sometimes Theology with Personal Anecdotes.

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