The Importance Of Meaningful Life

Happiness is an essential goal for most people. From books and expensive classes that teach people how to achieve happiness to the fundamental right of “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, the importance of happiness is evident in society. This causes the rise to two fundamental questions: “How does one attain happiness?” and “,How does happiness create a meaningful life?” Both happiness and living a meaningful life are achieved simultaneously. The search for happiness and the factors that make it brings meaning to life. Happiness can stem from several factors such as wisdom and knowledge, savoring life and its experiences, and even suffering and pain. Analyzing these factors brings meaning to one’s life.

Susan Wolf addresses these questions an aim to bring out the distinctive characteristics of the reasons and motives that give our lives meaning. Wolf claims that "meaningful lives are laws of active engagement and projects of worth" (Wolf, 206). Suggesting that when a person is actively engaged in anything they feel alive and life is more worth living. Nevertheless, Wolf explains that neither religion or science is sufficient for leading a meaningful life, claiming that a life of passion could corrupt the pursuit of happiness if you decide to dedicate your life to how you feel. Suggesting that working toward some goal that is substantial than yourself, can be hard work if you don 't have any passion or connection to it. According to Wolf, the subjective element is necessary for a meaningful life and arises from active engagement in some activity that one loves. In addition, the passive attachment to objectively valuable things are not sufficient for meaning. The feeling of fulfillment originates when “one is doing what one loves, or when one is engaging in activities by which one is gripped or excited” (Wolf, 207).

In life, there are many ways you can live, however, the manner in which you live is your choice. In most peoples’ lives, they want to leave this world and say that they were happy and enjoyed every single moment of it. People feel like if they lived a happy life, then that is all that matters. But what if life has more to do than just being happy, what if it was meant for you to change the world or the lives of others? If you changed the life of another person and made them happy, you made a difference. A happy life is a good one, but a meaningful life is fruitful.

In Todd May’s short essay, The Meaningfulness of Our Lives he provides the qualifications for what makes a meaningful life and what does not. He also provides a suggestion as to include everyone in having a meaningful life and not only the religious. The first step to a meaningful life according to Todd May is that the life “must, in some sense, feel worthwhile” (May 4). The next step to have a meaningful life is for it to “be worthwhile” (May 4). For these steps to be taken and have a meaning for your lives, one must have “a life of commitment to causes that are generally worthy- like feeding and clothing the poor or ministering to the ill”, these are few suggestions May considers saying in order to have a meaningful life, he

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." -Omar Khayyam. The center of one's life and the ultimate life goal should be the desire to be happy. Although in some cases creating something meaningful does bring happiness to a person's life, the sole purpose is to live for your own happiness and no one else's. Life's decisions should only be based upon the desire to make one's self happy. In the end, you only get one life so why live it for someone else? Everybody's idea of what happiness and what being happy consists of will be different. There are many factors that determine how a person will go about achieving true happiness.

Some believe a meaningful life is one that is rich in quality. Some examples of this idea are having a family, being successful in one’s career, being liked by others, and accomplishing a long-term goal. It is difficult to define what exactly makes a life meaningful. There

Meaningful to me is creating a positive outcome in your life and the lives of others, it is defined as having a serious, important, or useful quality or purpose. But what constitutes a meaningful life? I believe that all life has meaning, whether on a small or large scale. We use life to learn. To learn what to do, what not do, and to learn from others, and that all has meaning.

The Greek Alexander Romance describes the life of Alexander the Great, focusing primarily on his great military feats as a leader of Greece and highlighting why people remember him as a great Greco-Roman leader. Similarly, the Gospel of Matthew explains the life of Jesus Christ through his teachings and miracles, which underlines why people know him as the greatest figure from Judeo-Christian culture. Alexander and Jesus are similar in that they died in their early thirties, were kings, and underwent numerous triumphs on earth. Alexander sought to build his empire and essentially rule the world through victories on the battlefield by conquering neighboring countries. Jesus sought to destroy evil on earth by establishing God’s Kingdom and teachings in the hearts of all. Comparing the lives of these great Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian leaders highlights the differences in cultural opinion on the highest good in life, how one obtains that good, and what that means in connection to an afterlife. Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman perspectives on elements of a meaningful life contrast in that Judeo-Christians are motivated by the desire for everlasting life in heaven to pursue the elements of a meaningful life, while Greco-Romans are motivated by the desire for perpetual fame on earth after one dies.

Essentially, seeking happiness is necessary in life. We often hope to find happiness from other people, other things around us and forget that we can create it by ourselves. The novel “The happiness project” by Gretchen Rubin is sufficient evidence. The author states, “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be.”(13) Then she started a project within a year to change her life and seek for a happier life. By making a list of things she has to do in the next twelve months, the author have done many things which affects her “Vitality” (1), her “Marriage” (38), her “Leisure” (112), her “Friendship” (141),etc. positively so that she can achieve her goal, which is a life full filed of happiness as she dreamed before. We can also do that. We know that if everyone of us set a goal and live purposely, we are all happy. However, we can be happier if we know how to change ourselves on the right way. We can make ourselves happy by doing simple things in our everyday life.

The meaningful is the most attainable life out of three. It is also the most pursued life. Life satisfaction is the key to creating a meaningful life. Life satisfaction can be achieved through little

Life has no meaning if you don't have the urge to wake up the next morning to see the next day. Many people live their lives unhappy since they have no purpose or meaning to fulfill or satisfy their needs. Purpose to me is something to live for and something to look forward to in life. Without purpose and meaning in life there is no point of living at all. Recently in the existentialism unit we’ve been reading, I learned that without a passion to live, one’s life means nothing and is a waste of a soul. Based on the previous books I’ve read, I learned I am happy because I have things to look forward to in life and to wake up the next morning to enjoy the new day. Three elements that give me purpose and meaning in my life are my family, my

Happiness is defined as having a meaningful life. I believe that a meaningful life would be defined as understanding the separation of this life and the afterlife. This goes on to engaging and understanding your role in life and effect the world in a positive manner based on that role, yet still strive towards a spiritual connectedness by contributing to the human world in order to achieve spiritual connectedness. This also means finding truth in the world and reasoning that one still needs to work towards a spiritual afterlife in the end but must do this by understanding the truth of the world and educate yourself so that one can also live a virtuous life in the human world and focus on transcending to the afterlife after living a virtuous life.

I believe that living a meaningful life means living beyond yourself, working towards something that has value to you and also to other people, and doing something that is worthwhile in the end. It means not just existing on this earth, but living a life that you would be willing to live over again. A quote from Haybron’s book reads “Any life devoted to worthwhile ends is meaningful.” (Haybron p. 69) This means that doing something that will have worthwhile end results for not only you but the people around you is doing something meaningful. How does living this meaningful life make our lives good and happy lives? Living a meaningful life is ultimately living an emotionally fulfilling life. We will find pride and happiness in doing things that are valuable and meaningful to us, and will ultimately lead to a good and happy life. Haybron goes as far to say that “The full measure of happiness requires that we connect, in our lives, with what seems to us to matter.” (Haybron p. 68) This means that we will not even experience our full potential happiness if we do not engage in meaningful

What makes life meaningful? It depends on who you are asking. Although we have created a biological definition of life, we fail to define a meaningful life because the experiences an individual faces are different from another. A meaningful life is caring for another person, putting their feelings, needs, and wants over your own. Parents,

In modern society very few people are living a meaningful life, where they are happy to live their lives on a daily basis doing something that enriches their happiness. The majority in the other hand live their lives in different ways: They live in the future for which most of their dreams and goals are set, they live in a mechanical life, or they try to understand this world to find it meaning. The way the most people live their life is not meaningful, they waste most of their time waiting for something, as a habit and they forget to enjoy their present time. Such way of living has no meaning and is not worth living.