Really have been struggling recently with how to make my life meaningful. It feels like nothing I do matters at all. How do you address this?
Just to take a different approach to the more philosophical responses, make sure everything is well with the more concrete aspects of your life. We are made to care, we are made to be motivated and content; I truly believe that when we are not, it's because something else is preventing your body and your mind from working as they are supposed to work. Are you working too much and over-stressed? Are you sleeping and eating well? Do you make time to let your mind just wander? From personal experience, I cannot stress enough how important these things are, especially having enough sleep. If all of these are in order, you'll get an idea for a project, or you'll meet someone, or you'll just enjoy one particular moment, and it will have meaning to you. You'll be motivated and encouraged, it will matter. I don't spend much time searching for meaning anymore, I try to work to remove the things that are blocking it.
Read some Camus Camus's philosophy revolves around reconciling the fact that the universe is both absurd and meaningless with the human need to understand and ascribe meaning to it. Whether you agree with him or not, he will make you reflect on your own conception of the world and what really matters to you. I recommend starting with The Stranger or The Myth of Sisyphus before moving on to The Plague and The Rebel. (Camus often wrote in pairs; first he would write a work of fiction about a philosophical theme, then he would write a philosophical work on the same idea)
I could not agree more, he also embraces the meaninglessness of life and uses it as motivation to continue.
Whatever you may think of yourself, you matter. You are matter. You are the glue, however small, holding everything together. Every blood, acquaintance, or complete stranger you talk to is irreversibly changed by your very existence. Without you, my own world would fall into paradox. I understand, I really do. I've lived my whole life feeling that way sometimes. Still do. But life, however lonely and sorrowful, is truly amazing. I've had thoughts but it would be such a waste of a ticket. I'm ready for anything. I'm riding this one to the very end.
In the same vein, the universe and life don't come with a preset meaning, it is YOU that provide the meaning. And meaning doesn't mean you have to give it all up and live an ascetic lifestyle while helping rebuild some wartorn place. If it is, great, but it doesn't have to be. It can be being a rock for your friends, or the person who always holds the door open, literally anything. But all that meaning and purpose had to come from you. It's what makes you human, and an amazing individual at that!
I really don't. According to statistics, I'll never be a Steve Jobs. I'll never be a Albert Einstein. I'll never contribute anything to the world. I'll never be rich. I'll never be famous. I'll never live a dream life. I'll never invent something. To the world, I'll be human #6,302,112,312 and nothing more. I might get a job - and if I'm lucky, a comfortable one at that. I might have a girlfriend or a wife. I might have kids. I might travel. I might live a decent life, but I'll never really "amount" to anything. Most likely, I'll live a slow life. I'll get a basic job, try college out, and get something that keeps me warm with a roof over my head. I'll move out of my parent's house into an apartment or small house. I'll spend the rest of my existence in a trance - going to work at the same place every day and coming home to the same situation. I'll spend my free time sitting online, soothing the little social craving that I have by posting on a site like this. My friends will be gone. My family will be aging. My chances of meeting someone to spend the rest of my life with - or even friends, will continue to dwindle. I'll end up alone and empty. I'll probably go to sleep one night and never wake up. I'll decay for days until my landlord comes in to check for my rent, or my boss will get suspicious because I'm not at work (what would I miss for, anyways?). I'll sit in a morgue until my family comes to do whatever they need to do with me. I'll have a burial with only the remaining parts of my family present. I'll be covered for the last time and things will go on like they never happened. But you know what, don't listen to me. Go pursue a passion. Go find something that you like to do. Go meet someone, fall in love, break up, and do it all again. Go have friends, lose a couple, and make even more. Go do everything that you can to make life the way you want it to be. Go be happy. When you're busy being happy, the meaning of life doesn't really matter. You get too caught up on what's happening next, what you're excited for and all the great memories that you have to really sit down and think about what all of this means. There's a very small chance that there is a definite meaning to life, but there's most likely not. You could be a patron saint or a mass murderer, and in the end, it doesn't even matter. However, don't sweat it. Just go be happy, and either you'll be too occupied to care, or you will find a meaning to it all.
You make your own meaning. Sure, we're all just chemical reactions that probably happened by accident, nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s gonna die, and we should probably just go watch TV, but that doesn't sound very fun. Just be alive, make yourself happy (making others happy is a big part of this, morality is a chemical reaction too) and spike it when you reach the end zone.
I began studying Stoicism about 18 months ago, which is a Greek (and later Roman) philosophy of life. It tells us to live our lives in accordance with nature (which is not to mean go live in a log cabin in the woods, but in accordance with the ideal nature of ourselves, the nature of people, the nature of the world we live in) and that virtue is the only good. If this interests you, there are a large number of Stoic resources on the web (at the risk of invoking the competition, the FAQ for the Stoicism subreddit on Reddit is very good), but you could get an idea of Stoicism from Massimo Pigliucci's NY Times blog post: How to Be a Stoic
I have had this problem too. I'm an atheist, and generally believe that there is no particular higher purpose to my life, except what I choose as meaningful. And there's a lot of freedom in that, but it can also be scary. The best way I've found to make it less scary is to think about it this way: Take things one day at a time. I might have a general feeling of malaise and "nothing matters"... but if I think about it, I usually find that there is, nonetheless, something I'm interested in doing today. Something that could improve someone else's life; something that would make me feel happy or inspired; something I could share with someone I care about. To my mind, meaning in my life is built out of a long accumulation of small moments like that. Also, reading Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan gave me some very useful perspective on the idea of "purpose." Also, lifting weights sometimes magically cures this sense of meaninglessness with no further effort on my part. Try some standard depression advice; it might help.
I find some small comfort in the fact that no matter what, a lot of the time I'll never know if I have made a difference in someone else's life (for the better), or not.
Think of the people who have made your life better in some little way - do they know it? Chances are good that at least a few do not; and the same will be true of you and the people you have unknowingly helped.
I vividly remember when I reached this point. I fell into what I’ve seen referred to as a deep “existential depression.” It’s like the other side of the double-edged sword that is human awareness. For me, it didn’t fade quickly and stayed with me for a few years. I will say though, that with time, the feeling dissipates. We humans are great at getting used to things and this is something that mostly falls into that as well. As others here have said, once you just move back into living your life and don’t spend so much time thinking about this, you will realize that you have managed to get by just fine without the need for an ultimate meaning or reason for living. Not that is doesn’t really suck in the meantime or that it is ever completely gone. However, I will pass on some thoughts and findings I ran into over the years that have helped me to climb out of that place from time to time. First is a quote from David Attenborough and some comments by Bill Bryson: ”Like most things that thrive in harsh environments, lichens are slow growing. It may take a lichen more than half a century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button. Those the size of dinner plates,” writes David Attenborough, are therefore "likely to be thousands of years old.” It would be hard to imagine a less fulfilling existence. "They simply exist," Attenborough adds, "testifying to the moving fact that life, even at its simplest level occurs, apparently, for its own sake." “It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans, aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger...." This quote was very powerful for me. I started thinking about other creatures too like sloths. And then the thoughts hit me “WHY MUST you be more than the lichen or sloth? Why MUST you do more than live?” I decided that it's ok to just be and get on with life, that that is enough. You don't have to DO or BE ANYTHING. Life just is. But you CAN CHOOSE to do more than just live if YOU want to, but it’s not required. I ran across another great quote a few years ago that resonated with several thoughts I had been having about living a good or meaningful life. It’s short and pulled together all of my thoughts on the subject into an easy to remember idea. It has been a useful reminder for me in the years since: “I too hope that I bring meaning to the lives of my family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances.” I like to add “and that I will create wonderful memories for them to remember me by” to the end of that. That quote was from a really good discussion on the meaning of life (I wasn’t a participant)link to discussion Finally, if you enjoy reading, you might find some solace in discovering that you are definitely not the first to ask these questions. It appears that they have been asked since the dawn of time. If you enjoy the modern absurdist angle on it, there are several great and hilarious books that can lighten the weight that is on your shoulders by basically making fun of it. My suggestions would be The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Sirens of Titan (as another person mentioned), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. (A super short intro, with more God references than usual, to the genre would be “The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith” by Vonnegut.) They lovingly mock the human existential crisis in such a way that you can’t help but laugh at yourself and the energy you’ve put into resolving these questions that have demolished the greatest thinkers our species has ever known. Sometimes, when I start down this path again about finding the meaning of life, I remember all the incredible thinkers who came before me and who were so much more well trained, educated, and skilled than I am and yet they too failed to provide the answers to these questions. So then I laugh at my arrogance, in thinking that I would solve the eternal riddles of existence, and go on with my day again, trying to bring meaning and memories to the lives of those around me. Good Luck!
In my view, meaning implies there was an intention in the creation of something. For example: A table has a purpose of being a table. Why? Because it was designed that way by a creator. Since I don't believe in a creator I don't believe the intention exists therefore there's no meaning. If you want to find a way of being okay with this lack of meaning then read 'The Myth of Sisyphus' by Albert Camus and/or 'Being and Nothingness' by Jean Paul Sartre.
I don't. Life is meaningless, senseless, logicless. And that's exactly why it's awesome. Because with no meaning, no sense and no logic but our own, there's no higher calling for you. Whatever you do doesn't need to make sense if you like doing it and it doesn't harm anyone. And it doesn't have to be logical or intuitive. You do what you do - what you want to do, what you like to do. The only things stopping you is how far you're willing to go to make it happen and that you're not harming your peers. So go on. Figure out what you want to do, and keep at it - make yourself your little corner of chaos. And who knows, maybe you'll discover something... about the universe, about our world, about our society... or even about yourself.
I'm currently reading Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and trying to embrace the absurdity of existence as much as possible. It also reminds me of this Vonnegut quote, "I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
By stripping away the baggage. Transform one's life into a simpler one. Letting go of debts, assumptions, stresses placed on me by other people. Reducing clutter in the mind. Finding my own voice. Practicing independent thought. Self-regulation, self-awareness, being in touch with my surroundings. By reading, by contemplation, by endless cogitation.
Eh, just make the most out of it. That's how I follow my own motto. It doesn't really matter to be honest unless you really seek and ponder into finding the answer, but it all ends down to what you really believe in.
Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean you should just leave the world, or because you believe in a god doesn't mean you should worship Him or Them. It's all down to you, and it's all up to you.
Struggled with that for a while...probably still do. What I found most important is, "to who do things matter to?" I found that there were so many things that I was doing that didn't matter to me, but they mattered to others. There were other people I cared about, and I mattered in some form to them. That was really enough for me. To see that it was possible to matter to others. Most lines of thinking like to tell us that nothing matters, but we do matter in some way or another. We matter to each other, and to ourselves. Another issue I came across was I found myself placing my existence in comparison to the rest of the universe, and that isn't fair to me really. The universe may not give a shit about what's going on in my life or my goals/aspirations, but my family/friends/colleagues might. Hell, I might care about about what I want to do, and that isn't a bad thing. There is something spectacular in the small moments we live through everyday. Those are something worth focusing on, worth spending time on.