Essay
What Makes Life Meaningful 
Speaking about the meaning of life and the factors that contribute its meaningfulness and depth, one should address to philosophy, psychology, sociology and other areas of human life. First of all, one should say that there is no the common sense of life for the whole humanities. Secondly, the meaning of like varies from person to person. These are people who can be the creators of their destiny and who can fulfill their life of meaning or deprive it of any sense. Life is the chain of choices, making a decision and overcoming the obstacles. It is full of doubts, disappointment, happiness, and enjoyment. Furthermore, the wishes for a meaningful life and happiness are the driving forces that motivate and encourage people. This essay tries to prove that life can be meaningful if it is full of love, good affairs, and morality and purpose. Moreover, this essay regards such qualities as responsibility, objectivity, creativity and truthfulness as the ways of making life meaningful.
The Fact That Make Life Meaningful
What makes life meaningful is a philosophical question that does not demand the immediate answer due to its difficulty. However, one can answer it with the help of the factors and life situations that influence the personal development and growth. First of all, this is the family that makes life more crucial and meaningful. Not without reason, people who do not have families feel themselves lonely and unhappy. They devote themselves to unimportant things like money, appearance, fame and career growth. However, they have nobody to share the outcomes and happiness. It is evident that family makes life more meaningful. And even if the person is far from his family, he knows that he is loved and missed by someone. For example, the portrait of the family in the wallet can work magic and help morally and psychologically.
Another factor that makes life meaningful is belonging to the certain culture. First of all, culture unites the person with other people and makes him/her feel valuable. Secondly, culture influences the formation and development of the personality with the help of beliefs, traditions and customs. The person without culture is the same miserable and lonely as the person without family. Life is not a bed of roses; therefore, one should percept any challenge as a trial for bravery and resistance. Not without a reason people who are devoted to their families and culture feel homesickness and sufferings being abroad. Being a part of culture a person feels himself/herself rich, valuable and meaningful. It is a natural phenomenon to love, respect and share the cultural values with children. Moreover, life meaning is a cultural phenomenon that is fulfilled by the personal meaning.
The person is always before the choice when he/she makes the decision about adding the meaning to his/her life. One should say that life meaning is the unity of the following concepts like love, time, sex, beauty, creativity, relationships and thoughts about life and death. Without a doubt, one cannot ignore any of this aspect. However, too much obsession with any of this aspect leads to the loss of life meaning. In addition, people can add the meaning to other people’s life. These are parents, relatives, friends, loving people and even people meeting by chance. Those who are rich but lonely can miss, suffer and have a hard stone in their hearts.
Another factor that adds meaning to life is a religion. However, it should not turn into ideology and obsession. People address to God and religion when they feel the emptiness in their hearts or lose something in their life. Praying helps them to be on the right track and revitalize their life purpose. People can be happy even living without luxurious and expensive things. The main objective is not to let financial problems destroy sincerity, warmth, love, and tenderness. Without a doubt, money can make life easier, and one cannot live in poverty. However, one should not make them the sense of life. One should look for the sense of life constantly, and its meaning is in the abstract things like learning, love, relationships with other people, communication, trust, and sincerity.
The main thing is to find the purpose in life, and it takes time and efforts to do this. In childhood, people look cheerful and careless. However, their meaning of life is not only in paying and entertainment, but in love, care and attention received from the family and friends. Being teenagers, people are emotionally unstable, sometimes too aggressive and rebelling. However, first love, educational achievements and relationships with other people make them feel valuable and meaningful. Being the adult, people look for the sense of life in their emotions, feelings, and their achievements during the life.
One should say that time is a tester of life meaning. With years, people realize that they are becoming wiser, more experienced and old and understand what they have during their life to make it more meaningful and valuable. People who do not know their appointment and do not understand the life meaning live in vain. One should live in such a way to be able to remember the moments with a lump in the throat and nostalgia.
It is crucial to be determined and reasonable to understand life meaning. Moreover, it is essential to develop oneself constantly and improve the necessary skills. Observation of other people is a must in order not to repeat their mistakes and get their positive attitudes. Furthermore, one should know the value of success and use only ethical and moral ways to achieve it. Finding the sense of life is like climbing the high mountains with the obvious and hidden obstacles.
To live happy and rewarding life, a person should be aspiring and inspiring to understand the factors making the life meaningful. Happiness is considered to be one of the leading factors as happiness is not the state of soul, but the outcome of making good affairs and wise decisions.
Viktor Frankl wrote: “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it”. This statement is totally true as success is fading and passing. One should not determine too many targets not to feel disappointed. One should be dedicated to the only purpose to understand life entity.
Success can also be harmful for people as it can provoke selfishness and proud. It is evident that success is getting from rags to riches remaining moral and ethical with the help of persistence and hard work. Moreover, people should know how to evaluate their realistic abilities and skills. Only then, they will not feel disappointed. Moral qualities, strengths and values are above money, richness and luxurious life. Life can become meaningful when she/he has somebody with whom he/she can share his/her wisdom and experience. Honesty, respect and forgiveness are the features that make people be admired and impressed.
Every person finds his/her life purpose at the certain period of time with the help of any life moments. This search can be quick and long-lasing. However, when a person achieves an everlasting fulfillment, he/she understand the appointment and value of happiness. Victor Frankl wrote that success was not the most important.
False Vision Of The Life Meaning
Very often people have a wrong vision of life meaning. Consequently, they regard the family as a restraining force for their happiness and find the satisfaction in their outer world than inner one. They think that clothes can bring them enjoyment. Not without a reason, Andy Warhol wrote: “if there’s nothing there, clothes are certainly not going to make the man.” It means that people have a wrong vision of the meaning of life. They forget about the enrichment of their inner world with the good affairs, taking care of family and collecting happiness in morality. They buy the expensive clothes thinking that it will make them better. However, the decoration of the body is not the basement for the decorations of the soul. Moreover, they use their clothes for looking more attractive. As a result, they cannot hide the ugliness of their souls. As a result, clothes and appearance do not make like meaningful.
Another false vision of the life meaning is related to money and treasure. However, many writers destroyed this myth. For example, Charles Dickens depicted the false priorities of Mr. Scrooge who ignored his family, Christmas traditions and charity to save every pound. However, indeed, he was very unhappy. It means that the modern society neglect their inner world being obsessed with buying new items of clothes, houses and cars. Such false perception of the life meaning leads to the corruption of the personality and degradation of his/her moral values. The fashionable clothes has replaced the inner values, the expensive gadgets have replaced self-development and self-learning. The desire to have the high social and economic status can lead to the immoral and unethical behavior. People forget how to communicate with other people face-to-face. They prefer social media rather than communication and reading books.
Shallowness and poverty of inner world cannot be decorated with the expensive gadgets, luxurious clothes and sophisticated jewellery. People try to deceive others with their appearance becoming unhappy themselves. Moreover, they see their faults and mistakes like the negative experience that restrain them. However, it is a false vision of failures. On the contrary, one should regard them as the lesson from life.
False vision of the life meaning includes fame and recognition. Not without a reason, Emily Dickinson wrote that fame was like a bee that had wings and sting. It means that fame is not long-lasting. As a result, one should look for more eternal things. Fame can bring recognition, but it can provide happiness. Moreover, one should never feel shame of ethnicity, social status and close people. Life is given to be happy and to share this happiness with the surrounding people.
Those people who think that economic and social status is important have also a false vision of the meaning of life. Lack of money does not make the man of the lower kind if he/she is moral, ethical and kind-hearted. Economic status cannot measure success. One can evaluate the strength of the person to overcome obstacles and handle life challenges and ability to remain a human. Deception, lying and manipulation can help to earn money, but they make life empty, poor and shallow. These features prove the weaknesses of the personality, and cannot be the basement for self-growth. The modern time is especially controversial when it comes to life meaning as people are too materialistic and selfish to look for something more eternal.
My Life Meaning
As for me, I already know my life purpose; therefore, my life is meaningful. First of all, I have an endless desire for acquiring new knowledge and development practical skills. It means that I want to be intelligent, smart and knowledgeable to graduate from the university and find a good job. My curiosity helps me to open the unknown things and become more erudite. From one side, one can say that it is a stereotypical vision. However, I have already time to find the satisfaction in good affairs, feelings and sincere relationships with other people.
I realize that as a personality I should be developed psychologically, socially and cognitively. My psychological growth presupposes my emotional development to become more stable to stressful and depressive situations and more resistant to failures, faults and mistakes. My social development presupposes regarding the material benefits as less important than helping to other people and doing good things. My cognitive development includes the growth of positive attitudes and positive perception of the world.
The life experience empowers me not to repeat the mistakes of my family, avoid the social stereotypes, and live happy and rewarding life. First of all, I have created my vision of the meaningful life that presupposes getting the education, finding job and creating the family. Secondly, I understand that emotional satisfaction with life depends on my attitude, the environment I which I live and relationships with other people. Thirdly, the realization of the necessity of love encourages me to create more positive moments in my life. Moreover, I appreciate dynamism and moving forward with the help of the interaction with other people, expressing positive feelings, absorbing new experience and self-education.
“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love”, – says Viktor Frankl. It means that love gives the meaning to anything: life, relationships with other people, communication and feelings. If a person is poor, love makes him her richer as loving people do their best to help and support each other. If a person is sick, love gives him/her hope for recovering as love revitalizes and makes the person better. As for me, I am fallen in love; therefore, this is only the introduction to my life meaning.
Since childhood, I have understood that one should be always motivated and inspired to any affair, no matter whether it is a serious matter or household duties. Life can become meaningful when a person follows his/her dreams. Moreover, the person should be always persistent, hard-working, determined and purposeful.
To my mind, friendship and the ability to handle positive relationships also make the life meaningful. People with the endless potential, concrete goals and priorities attract good people who can become the faithful friends. True friendship can prevent from failures and mistakes and put on the right way. Friends also help to find the meaning of life and even become this meaning, especially if these are parents or children. For me, my family and friends add the meaning to my life. They are the people with whom I can share everything from sadness to joy and happiness. It is difficult to live when you have nobody to love and take care.
For me, every event in my life from getting an excellent grade, celebration of Christmas in family circle to finding a new friend add the meaning to my life. I think that one should see any negative experience as life lesson and every positive moment as the feedback for ethical and moral behavior.
Conclusion
In conclusion, one should say that there are many factors that make like meaningful. Life can be meaningful when the person has loving and caring family, when he/she is a part of any culture or ethnicity. Moreover, life is meaningful when a person makes the right and ethical choices benefiting other people. Life is full of sense when the person has beliefs in God or religion as praying is food for the soul. In addition, life is meaningful when a person is happy and shares this happiness with other people. Success is only the result of the right decisions and positive attitudes. Every person is a creator of his/her destiny and can add to his/her life the particular meaning. One should not complain about the unhappy destiny as everything is in our hands. Life is not a bed of roses, and only people can make it happier and more unforgettable with the personal activity.
False vision of life meaning includes too much attention to clothes, appearance and outer world. People who live an empty life appreciate money, social and economic status, fame, recognition. However, this false vision leads to the poverty and shallowness of the inner world that cannot be attractive with the help of the biggest treasures.
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