Let’s face it: life can seem quite pointless sometimes. We spend our days doing the same thing over and over again without a clear final purpose, and if you think about it too much, that can be rather frustrating. Still, since it’s Christmas, I figured that rather than bringing up controversial topics such as the Duck Dynasty affair, I would share with you what I think is our purpose in this world, and hopefully it will bring you a little inspiration along the way. So… what is the meaning of life?
Firstly, all living creatures have one thing in common: we all do the same thing over and over again in a perpetual cycle of pointlessness and we don’t ever get bored of it. We sleep, we eat, we eat some more, and eventually we’ll draw our final breath, but none of it ever gets boring. It’s rather monotone, and that makes it very easy to conclude that my life, as an individual, is absolutely pointless. No matter how happy I make myself during my lifetime, eventually, it will end, and all that happiness will fade away, forgotten and never to return.
As it happens, though, my life is not the only life out there. In fact, there are about 7 billion other human beings walking this planet at this very moment, and in about a hundred years, even though those 7 billion people will be gone, there will be other people who will have taken their place. My lifetime is short, but humanity’s lifetime is not.
That is where we find our purpose: in other people. Just think about it. If you manage to save one person from death, making sure that he or she lives until they’re 80 years old, how much of an effect would you have had on the world? This person would have children, who would then have children of their own, and some of these children will do good things. They will do great things. They might change the world, and if it wasn’t for you, they would never have lived.
Of course, not everyone is able to save a life, but even just improving one is enough. If, in your entire lifetime, you even manage to inspire one person to do the right thing, your life would have been worth it. Just by doing the right thing, by being kind and generous and fair, you will inspire other people to do the same, and those people will in turn inspire even more people. Life is a collection of an infinite amount of chains of events, and the very first link in each chain will define it all.
If you take in that person who is left out, that person who is on the verge of giving up on life all together, you might save or improve hundreds of lives without ever knowing about it. If you are that person on the verge of giving up, just by not doing so you might save hundreds of lives as well, because in the future, you will be that person sharing their story. That person who convinces others not to do it either and who gives everyone a little more inspiration to do what is right while having a great life of your own.
At the same time, bad actions lead to even more bad actions. Killing one person will ruin more lives than you can count, stealing a car might make people lose that positivity they could have used to inspire others, and anger towards another person, no matter what they did, will lead to more anger and less forgiveness in other people as well.
Ultimately, no matter how pointless life can seem, your actions matter. What you do as an individual has a major effect on this world, even if you won’t ever know about it, because no matter how unimportant you might feel you are, you are an example. People copy each other and they let themselves be inspired by others, so you can either be that person who makes other people do the right thing, or you can be that person who cares only about that one life, which will inevitably end and be forgotten. The choice is yours: to be meaningful and forgotten, or to be forgotten.
~
“Nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before.” – The Doctor
I think this Doctor Who quote is a good way to conclude this post. So many people seem to have the impression that you need to be successful to be important, while in reality, everyone is important and everyone has an effect on this world.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Don’t forget to rate/share/like this post, and if you have any thoughts of your own, please do leave them in the comments! And if you’re new here? Feel free to like the Facebook page for regular updates, or try having a look at the list of most popular posts!
More on this topic from Dean Richards:
How Science Proves That We Actually Don’t Exist
Dean Richards 
So, Richard, in conclusion: we can give our pointless lifes meaning by helping other people continue/improve their pointless lifes?
That actually sounds kind a sad…
It’s only sad if you want it to be 😉 Maybe their lives are just as pointless as ours, but all of humanity taken together is extremely valuable.
Well, with Christmas in mind, I shall not be too pessimistic. And the fact that all of us can individually contribute to humanity sounds like a nice decent purpose!
Reblogged this on paarsurrey and commented:
Paarsurrey says:
I agree with you.
Like the honeybees, as I understand, live in colonies; different bees in the same colony have different functions to perform; one kind of them cannot perform the function some others can perform and they do perform. So individually each one of them is busy performing its function; perhaps unaware of what others are performing and as to how they are performing.
Individually they have a meaning in the function they are performing but collectively they have the purpose of raising a honeybee colony.
Collectively they are supporting one another to collect honey and pollen as their off-season food.
The nature has another purpose of their life of which they are unaware; while collecting pollen they add pollination of nearby crops useful for the human beings.
Thanks and regards
So nature has assigned another purpose to them; to which they are unaware. Their ignorance does not mean the nature has not assigned them a special task/purpose.