FREE ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF LIFE

THE MEANING OF LIFE

Introduction to Philosophy
Paper #1
The Meaning of Life
The human civilization has been on earth for thousands of years now. We started off with
simple tools and used caves as shelter. Now we depend on computers, enjoy a luxurious
life and develop new ways to improve our lives even more. I always wonder if we finally
reached the final stage of improvement in our history. I mean what else can we do? When I
think about that question, the idea of the meaning of life comes to my mind and I
question the reason for my existence on this planet. My personal theory on this subject
states that we are here to impress God with our thoughts and actions, in order to prove
to him that we can handle any obstacles on Earth in order to achieve faith and glory to
be prepared for God in heaven. But then again my theory might not make any sense to
someone who doesn't believe in God. If there were no God, then what would the meaning of
life for the non-believer be? The meaning of life is a very delicate topic because no one
has the answer to it, but there are many theories that attempt to explain it and help us
understand life better.
There are many people in the world that don't believe in anything and think that nothing
really matters because we might be dead in the short future. This is an interesting idea
because if the world will end soon, then it doesn't really matter what we do now. I mean
if there is no point in life, then why should we even bother to struggle for a better
life if those achievements will not be permanent. If we think like that then there is no
point to what we do, unless we figure out what life is and what we want to do with it.
In my opinion, we can explain the point of most of the things we do if not all. We are
all brought up in a similar way and we learn to share our planet with other creatures. We
learn to communicate, we express our feelings and we learn something new everyday in
order to make our lives better. We work to earn money in order to survive and support our
families. We eat, sleep, and enjoy entertainment. We also talk to our friends and try to
be the best at what we do. I mean, if we didn't do any of that, then our lives would be
miserable and there would be no point to it. Then we ask ourselves again, "Is that really
the meaning of life or is there more to it."
In our lifetime we do all these things and usually we don't even think about them. I mean
if we look at our lives there is really no point to it at all. We go through ups and
downs all the time, we experience happiness and sadness, and we all think about death.
Most of us want to be remembered when we pass away, but then we think about death and we
realize that we will be forgotten and only our close family members will remember us. I
mean other people won't really care about our death because there is no point to their
life either, since the meaning of life is not known to any of us and probably never will
be. We are close to our families and we seem to love each other, but that will all pass
as soon as death arrives.
We all have the opportunity to make our life have a larger meaning. Even if we don't
believe that possibility then we can make ourselves belief that it is achievable because
many people around us were able to do it. I mean we might be a part of a political or a
social movement, which might affect our lives now and benefit the future generations. For
example a scientist might be able to achieve that point in many ways. Through his work he
can at least figure out a big part of the meaning of life. In today's world we have
scientists working on cures for deadly diseases which could change the way our world
operates. What if they were able to find a cure for cancer, would that make them think
that they figured out the meaning of life or at least part of it. In my opinion, it would
be a big part of it because he would improve a life of a human being. But we always want
to keep on improving our life and I am sure that the cancer cure would not satisfy us, we
would want more. I am sure that we would want to figure out the cure for death. That
would solve a lot of our doubts about the meaning of life. We would live forever so we
would not have to worry about death and the fact that we would be forgotten. We could
also achieve so much more in our life that would make us feel special and would add to
the many little parts that make up the meaning of life. 
I mentioned before that the meaning of life has many little parts to it, which don't
really explain anything to us. We were never able to see the whole picture, the large
piece of the meaning of life, which would explain it all. What if there is a different
meaning of life for different individuals? That might explain why we all have different
professions and why we are all different from each other. I mean from the religious point
of you we were all created by God, and he made sure that we were all different and had
something special that separates us from each other. This might also explain why we die
at different ages. 
In my lifetime I always heard the saying that "the good die young." Could this be the
meaning of life? When I analyze this quote it bring up many questions which makes me
think that being a good person could be the large piece of the meaning of life. Maybe
life on earth is just a test given by God to us to see if we deserve to be in heaven, and
some people are able to prove to God that they are ready early in their lifetime while
others fail and go in the opposite direction. 
The idea of God seems to be the idea of something that can explain everything else and
lead us to the meaning of life, without having to be explained itself. But many of us
don't believe and it is hard for us to believe that there is such a thing. If there is no
such thing as God, then how did we get on this planet and what are we doing here. That
question was never answered and might never be because it is the meaning of life and we
all have different feeling about it. There are many theories and some of them make sense
but have not been prove it yet. As a result the meaning of life will is a mystery and
might never be solved.