The meaning and meaninglessness of life

I'm just tired of living

Simple life like in childhood

What could be the scariest and most disturbing thing in life? This is when the person you have become meets the person you could have become. How can you be so busy all the time, but still live such an empty life?

Each of us became sad, gloomy and upset when we thought about our lives. How many times have you said to yourself: “I live an empty life”? Tens or hundreds of times? You often thought, but even more often you drove away thoughts about the frailty of existence. It's easier and simpler this way. In life it is difficult to know what to do and where to go. What should you do so that on your deathbed you don’t regret missed opportunities? It is difficult to find a clear and correct answer to this question.

Our biggest mistake is that we consider our life to be endless. But life is terribly short. At best, you will live 90 years, 1080 months, 4692 weeks or 32850 days. It seems like a lot, but look at these data to better appreciate the tinyness of life. Make notes of how long you have lived.

How does life become empty?

After school, technical school or university, life goes uphill. We get a job, start a family and get our first career successes. We have more money, everything is going well, and a happy life is just around the corner. But it only seems so. After graduation, we are happy for about 5 years, and then it all ends.

After 5-10 years, after studying, we are no longer so happy with our lives. Problems begin in relationships, and often divorce and division of property. Career success stops when you hit some invisible ceiling. Money starts to run short, and everything around you gets boring. There are no successes, and there is nothing to be proud of. Gradually you feel the first moral losses and a growing midlife crisis.

How a man can fill his life with cool girls

I live an empty life! Why don't we feel happy? We need tangible evidence of success. We need confirmation of the continuation of our good fortune and luck. This means more money, a new position, career success, an expensive car, the purchase of real estate. If this is not the case, then we begin to feel sad.

Why does life seem empty? For the reason that all past achievements are leveled out by life. Just yesterday it seemed like success, but today it does not bring joy: an ordinary family, an ordinary position, an ordinary life. You feel like a loser and a gray mass, without the slightest prospects for the future.

How to find yourself in life if everything seems meaningless

One day this happened to me too. This morning I woke up and realized that I didn’t want to go to work. What's waiting there? Daily routine. Every day I convince myself that I am incredibly lucky. Both with work and with the team. But the itch that I’m out of place hasn’t gone away for a second lately. Life passes, but the feeling that I have taken place in this life is still not there.

There is no feeling of flight when you know that your potential is in demand. And this is exactly your purpose. Why does this happen time after time? What is wrong with me? Why sooner or later does this feeling arise that I am lost in this life? It anchors you to the bottom of the stormy river of life.

Questions, questions... And there is no end to them: how to find yourself in life, how to understand what you have found, what to do to realize your potential and find the meaning of life, how to find your calling, your business, your goal, the essence, finally, where to find that starting point after which I can accurately and definitely say - this is my path, this is exactly my place in life.

How difficult it is to determine your true nature! How difficult it is to find your place in life! Perhaps I do not evaluate myself objectively or wishful thinking.

Maybe that's true. But what to do in this case? Turn to numerology, astrology, read fortunes using tarot cards, attend destiny training, where they promise to accurately determine your destiny. And what? What if I wishful thinking again? Where can I find a specialist who can correctly interpret this knowledge and information? Millions of people are born every second all over the world, but they are all different. Those who were born as twins or simply in the same maternity hospital at the same time are also different.

And yet: I really want to determine my flight level. The place where people like you fly. And where it will be possible to finally feel the taste of life, and not the surrogate that we usually consume for lack of anything better. Because this is your meaning in life. And the biggest mistake a person can make is to give up searching , give up, and come to terms with what he sees in the mirror. And what do you see there? The ugly duckling? Because you're not like everyone else? A sparrow cannot keep up with an eagle. And he’s not comfortable at those heights - he’s strong enough to fly that far, but it won’t last long, and there’s nothing for him to eat there. What about a swan among crows?

Have you looked in the mirror? I looked too. Nothing good. Or maybe look inside yourself? What do you see there, what is going on in your soul? Burnt fields, destroyed cities?

Well, why are we doing this to ourselves?! What's the point of living in ashes?

And do you know what conclusion I came to?

Everything in this life is relative and subjective. Some people are terribly depressed by their current state of affairs, while others have resigned themselves to it and simply “go with the flow.”

The same problems can seem both trivial and “the end of the world” to people with different worldviews, even if they eat black caviar with spoons in the morning. We are born different from the start. But not so much that you can’t figure it out and find the essence of life.

To find yourself in life, you first need to look inside yourself. You need to look at yourself as you are. The truth may be unpleasant, and in some places very unpleasant, but getting to know ourselves takes us to a new level. If we see and accept the truth, not obscured by social prejudices, imposed truths and illusions, we have a much greater chance of finding ourselves in life, finding the meaning of life and becoming a happy person. And knowledge plays an important role on this path , which will help you look into yourself and not get lost.

And if you have read this far, then about

A life lived in vain and the right goals

Why is life empty and meaningless? We incorrectly define the life strategy of short-term and long-term goals. We focus on short-term goals that give an immediate feeling of success. But over the long term, short-term goals turn out to be a trap leading to an empty life.

Short and long term career goals

Nobody wants to be unemployed or become an unclaimed specialist. But no one engages in self-education purposefully in order to keep knowledge relevant. We do not devote time to training, courses, training, reading, or absorbing useful information. But then we are surprised that we are not in demand on the labor market. We choose something more pleasant in the short term: entertainment, laziness, relaxation. This is an empty life that will bring sorrows in the future for a long time.

Short-term and long-term health goals

We don't want to be sick, ugly, fat, lethargic or diseased. But at the same time, we do not want to exercise regularly, lead a healthy lifestyle, or avoid bad habits. In the short-term strategy, it is better to lie on the couch, eat fast food or watch TV. But in the long run, it is better to exercise and lead a healthy lifestyle.

listen to your heart

Short-term and long-term relationship goals

We do not want to devote time to our family, spending all our time at work or doing different things. Time and attention invested in the family do not pay off for a long time. Children behave badly, and there are always some problems in family relationships. But if you make an effort, then in 10-20 years you will be glad that you have such a good family. In the long run, investing time and effort into your family is the right choice. Otherwise, conflicts with children and the other half are guaranteed, which lead to a family crisis. The other half may leave, and the children will not want to communicate. Is this something you fought for at work?

Why are you living an empty life? You choose what gives you that instant feeling of success. You choose simple entertainment, relaxation and drift through life. But this will not bring positive results in the long run.

Feelings of meaninglessness and the hero's journey

In fact, what is happening to you is not so bad. Sometimes a feeling of meaninglessness arises in those moments when we lose our bearings and begin to move in the wrong direction where our Soul is leading. We have been working for a prestigious company for many years, but we are afraid to admit to ourselves that we want something completely different. We try to be good wives, daughters and mothers, but we lose touch with our true desires.

The feeling of meaninglessness is a challenge from life itself, which simply wants to reach us. Everyone experiences similar crises. But it is with them that the hero’s journey begins.

Imagine yourself as the main character in your life, who at some point faces an obstacle in your way. She has a choice: accept the challenge or give up. If the hero gives up, the film usually has a bad ending. If the hero accepts the challenge of life, then his whole fate changes radically.

Of course, to get out of this situation, the hero must defeat his inner monsters, learn to act in a new way and overcome his fear of change. It is not easy, but as a result he finds long-awaited happiness and success.

Our life is like a movie, and you are the main character in it. The challenge thrown at you is to walk the hero’s path with dignity, learn to live and enjoy life. Otherwise, you will remain with what you have and live a meaningless, alien life. Are you up to this challenge?

Ecology of life: The meaning of life is simple. In the Eastern, namely in the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is such a wonderful tool for beating the crap out of too smart monastic heads, called the koan. Now I’ll tell you what it is, and then it will immediately become clear what the meaning of life has to do with it. The story is humorous - take a breath before reading.

There's a meaning. There is no point. There's a meaning. There is no point.

The meaning of life is simple. In the Eastern, namely in the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is such a wonderful tool for beating the crap out of too smart monastic heads, called the koan. Now I’ll tell you what it is, and then it will immediately become clear what the meaning of life has to do with it. The story is humorous - take a breath before reading.

The East is the land of introverts. Unlike the West, the type of contemplator, eternally immersed in introspection, predominates there, and not the type of doer, giving preference to the temptations and joys of the external world. And therefore the psychological problems they have in the east are also introverted.

If the practical West always lacks understanding of its soul, then the East easily gets lost in its wilds and loses contact with objective reality. For this reason, Western and Eastern psychotechnics are so different from each other. In the West they teach to open your inner world, and in the East - to open the world of surrounding reality.

For the same reason, the fashion for Eastern spiritual traditions is meaningless and sometimes dangerous for the West. The Western extrovert will not feel any great truth from the fact that he firmly feels the weight of the abbot’s staff on his back - he already knows very well that the world is solid and tangible. But for an Eastern monk, a lesson with a stick is extremely important - it reminds him in the most direct way, with real bruises and abrasions, of the materiality of this world.

Eastern psychotechnics are intended to straighten the minds of monks who are prone to drowning in the world of their eternal intellectual speculations. And the koan is one of these means.

Essentially, a koan is a trick question. For example, one of the most famous koans is “What does clapping one hand sound like?” The master asks this question to the student and expects a certain reaction from him, and if the reaction does not suit him, he beats the student with a stick and sends him to think again - longer.

And so the monk goes somewhere quiet, sits facing the wall in the lotus position and thinks what kind of bullshit is this - clapping with one palm. For emphasis, these thoughts are called meditation, but in reality he is just sitting and thinking about the white monkey. And the catch is that while the student “thinks” he will not be able to find the answer and will only receive new bruises on his back from his loving teacher.

A koan is an intellectual paradox. It acts like a stone thrown inside a complex clockwork mechanism of a thousand gears. As soon as the mind tries to chew it, teeth and sparks immediately rain down - the thinking machine begins to crunch and fall apart. And the student continues to be regaled with koans until his mind completely capitulates.

When this happens, the new koan no longer confuses the student. Instead, he throws out some kind of answering trick - as paradoxical as the question itself. For example, he hits his favorite teacher on the back with a stick. And then they celebrate and have fun together, because the main barrier that separated the student from the beauty and harmony of the world around him has now been broken.

Of course, not everything is so simple, but now it doesn’t matter.

The student's very first reaction to the koan shows where his center of mass is. If the student continues to live by his mind, then he takes the paradox seriously and immediately tries to solve it, but if he has already lost a little of his mind, then the paradox does not touch or touch him in any way - and this is a good sign.

So, back to the title. The question of the meaning of life is also a kind of koan. And most of all he comes across introverted dreamers who love to speculate about the fate of the whole world while sitting in their kitchen. Extroverts usually respond to this question more simply - “Get lost, I have more important things to do!”

A person can build many beautiful and poetic theories about what the meaning of life is, but for each of them in the east he would receive a blow on the back. Real life is always on the other pole. Wherever the mind goes in its reflections, there is no longer life there - only ghostly reflections. Like a horizon that recedes at the same speed as you try to catch up with it.

Any intellectual answer to the question about the meaning of life is nonsense. The more theories are built about why life is needed and how it should be lived, the more you chase meaning, the more empty and boring life seems.

Life never conforms to the expectations that people try to place on it. She herself is the best teacher, who is always there and always ready to give a strong kick.

The pursuit of meaning must be stopped - then it will be possible to restore connection with life and feel the meaning of every moment. The mind is an obstacle, not a thing to be sought.

This might interest you:

The Law of Attraction in the world of thought: As it hits, so it will respond” - and from all sides!

People, why do you lie all the time?

But it makes sense to use the question about the meaning of life only as an indicator - if a person is concerned about this question, it means he has wandered somewhere into the wilds and has deceived himself in some way. You need to hit him with a stick or make him coffee - your choice...

So what is your meaning in life? published

Author: Oleg Satov