Golden question of what's the meaning of life!

[Intrigued123]

Hi,

New here/to beyond blue in general.
I don't necessarily think I have depression but I don't also quite know what's up with my mental health (In my mid-twenties for reference).

I had to have 2 weeks off work due to a surgery, which has caused me to stay in bed/home. This has resulted in me spending a lot of time thinking about this thing we call life. I could sense that over the past couple of months I've been a little down, but in these 2 weeks, I've really had the grand old question of 'what is the meaning of life?', constantly come up in my mind.

Sure I haven't had a boyfriend in the past 5 years or so, but I don't necessarily think that me being with someone just all of a sudden means life is ace. I'm sure after years of being with someone and having a family, I will eventually come back to this question.What is the actual purpose of life? We get married, we have kids, we have fun and travel the world, but what does this all mean?

Don't get me wrong, I have a very strong community around me currently, and have many friends. I literally had people visit me every 2nd day whilst recovering. But still can't shake this weird feeling of emptiness/lack of clarity about life. I see my friends, I go to work and sure I have fun along the way, but I find myself sometimes just counting down hours and days for no real reason. It's like I'm just counting down time until I die of old age or something!

It's actually all quite hard to explain, in terms of what I'm actually feeling. It's this weird thing that I only really think about when I'm alone or at night before I go to sleep.

Anywho, not sure what the answer is but figured I should write this all down somewhere.

Cheers,

[aegidius]

I personally like the existentialists' view - the question "what is the meaning of life" is meaningless if you expect an external answer. The only meanings in life are the ones we create for ourselves. Not very helpful I know, but there you are. There is danger in overthinking these things, which is exactly what you do when your life is interrupted by illness or other forced downtime...

[Terry73]

Hi Intrigued,

The old question no one can really answer "What is the meaning of life?", its a simple question but one that can not really be answered. It is good to have questions and look for answers, but reality is that we all just exist.

I believe that some questions should never be answered, this is one of them, instead I strongly believe in living for the time we have, fulfilling our dreams and making our mark in history. All of this while living out a happy and righteous life in our own way. We can choose what we want to do in life, and while on this world, I choose to live a happy one, even if the past hasnt been good, I still look forward to better times.

Outside of living for the time we have, I also believe in helping others live their lives as best they can as well, family, friends, even strangers. That way we will be remembered favorably after our time has passed, and maybe what we do can help others after us become more "evolved" and have a better lifestyle. That is why we raise children, to carry on in a better life than we have had.

Thats my thoughts on it anyway

Terry

[aegidius]

A good answer Terry - better than mine anyway 🙂 Family is where most meaning comes from for me too. We are constantly being told how important it is to maintain social connections, but sometimes it's just too damn hard. Outside of that, I think it's important to keep questioning and keep the curiosity up. External relationships can't always sustain you but a rich inner life can.

[Juliet_84]

Purely from a biological perspective, the primary purpose in life is procreation, this is best exhibited by the animal kingdom. But humans have the ability for complex emotions and intelligent thought, which makes us question our purpose. Like everyone, I don’t know what our purpose is on earth. But having had a near death experience, I know that in those moments I thought about the people I loved, the places I’d travelled, and never once thought about work or money. So I have shifted my focus since then, I don’t sweat the small stuff and I try and do things that enrich my soul and work less these days (I used to have a tendency to be a bit of a workaholic). I think our meaning in life may be fairly individual