What is the meaning of life, the most important question of all time? Why are you doing all of this? Why would you want to go to work every day and struggle all day? Why should you listen to the complaints of your boss and the unrealistic demands of clients? Put in all of the effort and struggle. But what is there at the end of the day, and why are you doing all of this? Some might argue that if you have money, you will have a better life. But the same question remains: what to do with better life?
One year ago, I was in this situation. I was not sure of what I was doing and why. I felt no purpose in this life, so I set out to find the meaning of life for myself. And trust me, it is very boring to sit in one place and figure it out by myself. So I took the help of the internet to see what people were saying about this. I also asked my friends and family. For some, their children are the meaning of their lives; for others, their success at work is the meaning of their lives; and for still others, being accepted by their favourite person is the definition of life. and some want to make some impact in this world and so on. The list is long, and as an individual, I have limited time to do all of those things. So I had to choose something… which is again a task in itself.
Pale blue dot
Then I saw one image that gave me some perspective. Yes, this one. This image is called the “pale blue dot.” This is an image of our planet taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft 6 billion kilometers away. That white dot that’s us.
We are so insignificant that our existence does not matter in respect to scale with this world with this universe. And hence there is no meaning to find. There is no milestone to achieve and nothing that you will ever do will even make a dent in this universe.
I don’t want to leave you depressed and disappointed.
So here is my answer. We give our own meaning to life doing what you like and enjoy this very moment. There is this story about a fish from the movie Soul. I will leave you with that.
“I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ the older fish says, ‘that’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This’, says the young fish, ‘this is water. What I want is the ocean!’”.
