What is the meaning of life - a guide to complex questions of the meaning of life

What is a sense of life? - people often ask this question, but not a single psychological resource can find an answer, or even a direction - where to even begin the search for the meaning of life? Psychologists give vague formulations regarding everyone’s personal choice and path, but for the majority there is no clarity.

It seems that most psychologists themselves are not sure that it exists - the meaning of human life . And they try to avoid this issue. It’s complicated, it’s hard, there are no universal recipes. And there really aren't any.

But can we at least understand what the meaning of a person’s life consists of, and does it change over the course of life? And where do you even start looking for an answer to the question, what is the meaning of life, if your life now seems meaningless to you, and for you this is not an empty reflection, but a really serious problem?

What is the meaning of life - what is the meaning of suffering?

There are many concepts that answer this question. And every current of human thought has its shortcomings (at least, this is how it is often perceived by those who are experiencing a search for the meaning of life). The general essence of religious teachings, for example, on this topic is that the experience of suffering will not remain without reward. Where - this already depends on the specific teaching, but many religions answer the question “what is the meaning of life?” They respond with the concept of an eternal, other life, where there will be a reward for earthly suffering, and the opportunity to unite with God in bliss and joy. Unless you mess up too badly here and end up in hell.

Some teachings do not imply rewards during life, which can make few people happy. Some suggest that during life this is at least partly possible, although this will give rise to additional efforts, which, in essence, are also suffering. And in order to decide whether the game is worth the candle, you need experience. But for him it is effort, and this is a certain risk of wasting effort, unnecessary suffering and an unknown result.

Some, already philosophical, movements answer the question “what is the meaning of life?” turn us not to eternity, but to this present reality, and the essence of such meaning can be pleasure. Which in itself is not bad, at first glance, but then the question arises: is the suffering comparable to the pleasure received? And for many it often turns out that it’s not very good.

Other currents of human thought to the question “what is the meaning of life?” respond with the idea that you can leave behind something significant (depending on what you yourself decide to consider significant - from offspring to a serious masterpiece in the field of science or art, social activity or sports).

However, plunging into all these religious and philosophical reflections, a person looking for an answer to the question “what is the meaning of life?” he cannot in any way escape from two things over which neither his mind nor any of the currents of human thought have power:

We are programmed for happiness, and we have a need to always strive for something more positive, in other words, more joy, trying to minimize the amount of suffering. This partly ensures our survival. Physical pain, just like in animals, tells us that something is wrong in our body and/or we are interacting with our environment in a traumatic way. Pain forces us to change and look for more comfortable conditions in the environment. Mental pain is a more complex phenomenon, but it, in essence, pushes us to the same thing - to change, develop, do something to stop suffering in one way or another.
We cannot limit ourselves only to problems of survival. We are aware of the fear of death not only in a situation of obvious danger, but also “in general,” and it forces us to look for some other motives for action other than ensuring survival, encourages us to persistently look for some ways to extend ourselves into eternity or to know it in that or in some other way.

What is a sense of life? “Essentially, it is an individual understanding of the purpose of existence, beyond the simple survival of both the individual and the species. And meaning is something that should give energy for action, and therefore bring satisfaction on an emotional level. Actually, something for which we will be able to overcome suffering not only momentarily, but also in the long term.

If you put all this together into a simple diagram, you get the following. The desire for satisfaction and pleasure motivates us to act. In our actions, we inevitably come across obstacles, because we are members of a system (which consists at least of people, material objects, nature), and not a single system exists only to make us feel good. Accordingly, conflicts arise with other representatives of reality, with its processes and laws independent of us.

When we encounter these obstacles and enter into these conflicts, we ask ourselves questions. Well, for example, “is the game worth the candle? “Is the suffering proportional to the expected pleasure and joy?” Or “what am I doing wrong, why am I not succeeding?” Or perhaps “is this my goal, do I really want this?”

Simply put, suffering (obstacles, conflicts, the world’s refusal to immediately satisfy your needs) is a signal that your movement through life (behavior, thoughts, perceptions) needs to be adjusted. Note - not the world, but precisely your movement. Here are a couple of examples.

Suppose you are overtaken by unrequited love. You are suffering. And the object of your affection is in love with another person, and the person reciprocates. Will these two want to correct their path and the structure of the world in general? No. Everything about it is good for them.

This is bad for you. And your suffering shows you that you went into the wrong corridor. That (it turns out!) you are capable of falling unrequitedly in love. Or even inclined. And all this is not just like that, it is important information.

If you accept it as information about yourself, then it turns out that your suffering will have a very specific meaning: thanks to attempts to understand the situation, you will find out what the problem is, and most likely, with the help of this information, sooner or later you will figure out what the problem is. , how to find a partner with whom a relationship would suit both him and you.

Or, for example, you are constantly short of money. And your needs tear you apart and make you suffer, envy others, get angry and resentful. Or you don’t notice, ignore your needs, but vaguely suspect that if there was more money, there would also be more joy.

But there are those around who are quite comfortable within the framework of this system, this world, who either have enough money or do not have so many needs, and it turns out that this again is information about you. It's no one's fault that you don't have enough money, you're just not on the right path to meet your needs. And this painful situation can push you onto the path you need, allow you to earn money and fulfill your dreams, and perhaps reconsider some of your needs.

Now ask yourself: would you do something, change, think, try something if you felt good in unrequited love? Or you wouldn’t care about the lack of money - unfulfilled dreams wouldn’t bother you at all. What would happen to you then? Would you then ask yourself the question “what is the meaning of life?” And would you move somewhere?

Scientists conducted an experiment at one time. An electrode was implanted into the rat's brain, irritating the pleasure center. And they connected it to a pedal in a rat cage. After some time, the rat discovered a connection between the pedal and the feeling of pleasure, and began to actively use it.

The rat stopped eating, being interested in other rats, mating, and even sleeping. She pressed the pedal, had fun, and nothing interested her anymore. As a result, she died of exhaustion.

Development as the main guide of the life process

Now think: what would happen to your life if there were no suffering in it? Do you think you are very different from a rat? Our instincts and desire for pleasure are not far removed from the animal level, and the signals of our nervous system are arranged on the same principle.

We, just like animals, feel pain, they just feel it mainly from physical stimuli that prevent them from surviving and receiving simple pleasures, while humans are capable of suffering for a host of other reasons.

And I think that in a similar situation, having stopped suffering and having unlimited access to pleasure, he would have died even faster than a rat. Unfortunately, I have seen similar examples in real life.

For example, drug addicts who had enough money to constantly maintain themselves in a state of drug intoxication. Some, meanwhile, did not stop supporting their livelihoods for a long time - they still went to shops for food, washed clothes, etc., some even quite successfully continued to work or study.

But those who did not stop constantly consuming pleasure and tried not to encounter suffering gradually degenerated, paying less and less attention to their lives, including their physical lives.

Some of them, having become completely inattentive, died from an overdose, and some simply from concomitant diseases that were happily “not noticed.” Those of them who tried to undergo rehabilitation in a drug treatment clinic, one of them admitted that they were very tormented by the question “what is the meaning of life?”, to which they could not find an answer.

Continuous pleasure does not help us answer the question “what is the meaning of life,” find it and live in it. Oddly enough, on the contrary, it helps to die very well. Because, having achieved ultimate pleasure, a person will not move anywhere.

Development is what all living things are subject to. Everything is moving. From the smallest bacteria in the soil and air to the enormous size of the earth's tectonic plates. Your heart beats around the clock, your brain works in different modes, even when you sleep, the work of your internal organs does not stop for a minute.

Can a person stop? Yes, only if he dies. And then, no one guarantees that something outside his bodily shell, whose expiration date has expired, will not continue to live in some other format. After all, this is exactly what happens in nature - all obsolete organisms in one form or another serve as food and fuel for others and continue to develop.

It turns out that nothing dies at all, everything just changes shape. And therefore it is difficult to deny that your consciousness can also change form, even if the body becomes humus, ash and in one form or another becomes food for the earth again.

But you can participate in the development process either consciously or not. No - this is if you lived your life haphazardly, no one knows why, died and became a nutrient solution so that over time, with your help, a tree would be born.

I won’t talk about the path of your soul and the fact of its existence in general; let’s assume you don’t believe in all this. The important thing is that you still have to participate in development. Ignorance of the law does not excuse one from responsibility, alas.

You cannot stop development; it exists as the immutable basis of all living things. Therefore, you will have to participate in it, consciously or not. And your individual meaning will have to be sought in it. You don’t develop in everything the same way as others.

Priority aspect of the meaning of life

Reunion is hindered by laziness, unbelief, worries... It’s like gusts of wind that blow away faith, your search. It depends on you whether you will keep the light, whether you will not turn your back and go back to everyday life. Christianity through the centuries carries the message that the answer to the meaning of life is to find salvation through reconciliation with the Author of life. Salvation from evil in the soul, from emptiness and death. The meaning of life is to be closer to your Creator, to grow spiritually, taking care of the immortal soul.

Anzhelika Yumatova

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How to start looking for that very individual meaning of a person’s life

Each person has abilities, inclinations, character traits, and temperament. He is not born a completely blank slate, he already has his own special circumstances of birth, which are different from other children, there are innate features of the functioning of the body, there are innate abilities and characteristics of the psyche.

I once tried to answer the question for myself, “why one is born rich and healthy, while the other is born poor and sick,” and you can read what happened in my interview about fate.

But now we won’t talk about it, we’ll just accept it as a fact: you already have a certain set of abilities. There are no people deprived of everything and good for nothing. Everyone has certain characteristics, inclinations, in general, something that can be realized one way or another.

And, as a rule, it is from them that your desires flow. For some reason, one in childhood wants to sing, another wants to draw, a third wants to build huts, a fourth wants to cook soups and bake pies, even if only from sand or grass picked in the yard. Sometimes these things change, but only you can ultimately determine what really attracts you and what cries out from the inside of you.

What is a sense of life? To begin with, in search, first of all, of this unique set of characteristics, thanks to which you can contribute to this life. This solves more than one problem.

First of all, you have fun. If you do what you like, you are unlikely to ask the question “what is the meaning of life” so often.

Secondly, you can benefit society and leave something behind. More often than not, masterpieces and simply something well done are achieved precisely when a person is sincerely passionate about what he does.

Thirdly, you gain experience - actions, communications, decisions, correcting mistakes, etc. And as a result, you become more confident and more successful.

Also read about how to become more confident in yourself.

And for a person who lives a generally happy, successful (according to his own criteria, first of all) and fulfilling life, the question “what is the meaning of life” rarely arises.

He just wants to live on, he has a lot of new goals, desires, plans, and his only concern is to manage it all. Because this is where his individuality is manifested, this is what brings him maximum pleasure, this is what makes him even more confident and experienced, gives him recognition, need, love, prosperity - in general, everything that many would like to have in life.

Will you question “what is the meaning of life” if your life as a whole is deeply satisfying? If you have formed a picture of the world for yourself, if you know what you believe in, if you know what you would like to leave behind, and most importantly, you no longer perceive suffering as a senseless injustice, if you already have experience in extracting information from suffering and its successful application?

By and large, if all this happened to you, it is already clear to you in general terms what the meaning of life is, at least what it is for you at the moment. However, if you are still experiencing, you are tormented by the search for the meaning of life and it seems that everything is meaningless, this means that you have not shown enough interest in yourself.

After all, everything really starts with you. Who, besides you, can decide whether you want to believe in Christ, Buddha, science, consider yourself an agnostic, or something else? Who, besides you, will decide whether you need to leave behind a masterpiece, or whether it is enough to give birth and raise a child? Who, besides you, will understand what style and lifestyle will allow you to maximize your talents? Nobody.

This is where we really come down to individuality. You have everything inside you - a penchant for the rational or intuitive in a certain balance and proportion, in a unique combination you have feminine and masculine traits, a penchant for one or another type of art, science or craft, your mental characteristics leave imprints on the style and nature of your perception the world, interests, your activity, its rhythm, and it is you, with such abilities, with such rhythm and with such desires, who can realize everything unique that no one else has.

What is a sense of life? To you. The fact is that you were born this way. For what reasons - you may have to find out. Perhaps you won't need it. But the search for the meaning of life begins precisely with this - interest in oneself.

You cannot understand what the meaning of life is if we talk about some common denominator. And it’s even useless to look for it outside of yourself. Because it is impossible to do what you are not capable of - it will still bring neither results nor pleasure.

And, on the other hand, you can be sure: inside you there is something that will bring you pleasure, joy, lead to results, success, happiness and will allow you to form exactly that picture of the world within which you will be comfortable, reliable and confident.

How to find the meaning of life?

Many are chasing the idea of finding meaning. However, they feel that this search path is beyond their budget, time or lifestyle.

However, as they say, the journey begins with the first step. Try a simple mental exercise to help you identify what is important to you and where to look for meaning in life.

All you need is a piece of paper, a pen (pencil) and free time. Write a list of different areas of your life, such as relationships, work, education, spirituality, health, family and recreation.

Using a scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (most important), rate each item on the list according to its level of importance and value to you.

Once you've identified the two or three most important things on your list, take a moment to describe where you stand in those areas of your life and how you'd like to find more meaning in them.

It is important to take your time with this exercise. Remember that, like Rome, the meaning of your life will not be built in one day . Cultivating patience is one of the most important tasks in discovering meaning and improving life.

If you don't like to write, try sitting still and listening to any of the many free meditations available online.

The meaning of life - process or result, momentary or eternity?

The last thing I want to say. The answer to the question “what is the meaning of life?” cannot be the only one for life. He is changing. But on the other hand, all our lives we do only one thing - develop in one way or another. Even degradation can be called development - all the same, the system, which is a person, changes in this process.

The meaning of life is a paradox, it is a combination of incompatible things, balancing between extremes and an attempt at every moment, in every period of life, to find some kind of balance that is optimal for you.

In adolescence and adolescence, the main answer to the question “what is the meaning of life?” can lie in the plane of learning to be independent, growing up, at least taking this path. In another period, the meaning may be to create relationships, families, and the birth of children.

In some periods of life, learning new things, professional development, and spiritual development come to the fore; in others, the desire for greater comfort and security; in others, creativity. And some days - rest, rethinking what has been passed, developing new goals.

All of these are processes of constant change, which, of course, contain results, but the achieved result is always replaced by a new goal, and this is normal. As they say, there is nothing more constant in life than variability.

Therefore, it is difficult to divide life into some clear segments and say: “here is my process, and here is the result, here I deal with the momentary, and here with the eternal.” Among the answers to the question “what is the meaning of life?” there is also one: in knowing extremes and learning to live them at the same time.

Viktor Frankl, who went through a concentration camp and wrote a wonderful book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” said that in the most difficult moments, what helped him survive was the desire to leave his thoughts, observations, and the fruits of his work to his descendants. In his head he composed and wrote a book, even more than one, and believed. Thus, the desire for eternity helped him survive the terrible hardships in that terrible present.

But it can also be the other way around. Routine, everyday activities can bring you closer to eternity. And adherents of different religions have spoken about this more than once. About the fact that much is learned by the deeds of a person, and deeds sometimes consist of quite ordinary things.

You will never find one universal answer to the question “what is the meaning of life,” but you can find it at every moment, in every period of your life. In accordance with your desires, abilities, your path, your own formed picture of the world. And all this will change over time.

Only one thing will not change while you are alive - all the answers will still be inside you and you will develop throughout your life, even if you degrade.

And the search for the meaning of life for you will begin with studying your own individuality, determining your immediate goals, your own (and not other people’s and “as it should be”) desires, abilities and inclinations.

Good luck to you on this difficult path!

Author of the article

What are the disadvantages of not knowing our purpose?

Lots of fussiness . Because we don't know what goal we are rushing towards. We know what we want, but we don’t know where we are running. There is no common goal, so every time you achieve abstract goals, dissatisfaction comes. For example, we bought a TV and enjoyed it a little. What's next? Next I want to change the refrigerator, then the car. And at a certain moment, when the goal is achieved, we got what we wanted, suddenly a moment of dissatisfaction arises: well, yes, this is there, so what?
Often in difficult moments of life there is a feeling of emptiness, apathy and even depression . These phenomena indicate that, most likely, a person does not know his meaning in life, does not understand his purpose.
Personal crises that appear at the age of 30-55.
Living someone else's life . The human personality and his nature are very easy to control, because if he does not have a big global goal, then most likely this person lives by petty passions or desires. And all manipulations in society are based on catching some kind of passion and playing on it. Such people often work for someone else, live for someone else, do not do what they need - live someone else’s life.