What is the Meaning of Life?

Why are we here? Is there an overriding purpose for our lives? Here are ten possible answers, with more than one possibly proving true during our lifetime:

1. No reason: This is nihilism, which maintains that life is meaningless. Shakespeare’s Macbeth may have said it best:

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last syllable of recorded time; / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”

2. School: We are here to learn some essential lessons, and then move on. We slowly learn through a “spiral curriculum,” where we keep having to relearn the same lessons until we finally get it right. Death could then signify our “graduation.”

3. Time and place for “testing”: who are we really, what will we demonstrate? The testing could be for the sake of our proving whether or not we belong in a better place – or are ready for it, since the “timing is everything.” It could also be to further develop our character. The Apostle Paul said: “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

4. General Hospital: We are all “dis-eased” is some ways, and are here to get better and/or healed. Pain and suffering just may be essential “medicine” we must endure, which fortunately only last for a time.

5. This is “heaven”: The philosopher Leibnitz said, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” Case in point: The fact that life is temporary makes living and loving now all the more intense. We discover that daily life consists of a stream “one moment, one time” events, which we must live now or lose forever.

6. This is “hell”: This is a place to suffer for past-lives transgressions, where we may see what we want, but will not be able to have it, from plenty to prestige, love and friends.

7. This is “purgatory”: We are here to get freed and purified from our past inequities and/or negative karma. We are here to “purge” ourselves of evil impulses and ways, so as to prepare for the good which is to come.

8. Story creation: We are here to live out stories, as in “The play’s the thing.” What if we had all eternity to live, but in order to make living more meaningful and significant, it had to consist of temporary stories, in which we find ourselves necessarily embroiled, beginning with our own family of origin.

9. We are here to do something, on some unexpressed mission. We may not know what it is or when or even whether we have accomplished what we are sent here to do. We will find out on the other side how we did. The book and subsequent movie “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” is about discovering what we were here to do.

10. We are here to generate love. The bees generate honey, and we generate love, which like honey, may last forever. Perhaps we can only take love with us when we die. If so, those who have loved much here, will have the greatest wealth, there, which shall not be taken from them.