WHAT MAKES LIFE MEANINGFUL?

 What is it that really makes life meaningful? I think that something must be added to the question to save it from genericity. A revision of the question will be : what is it that makes life meaningful for me? Here, I appeal to the theory of Subjectivity, for it is the case that whatever makes life meaningful must affect the individual individually. What makes life meaningful for person A may be different from what makes life meaningful for person B and C. Hence, each individual will have to decipher or identify what makes life meaningful for him or her. So, what is it that makes life meaningful for you.

But to ask what is it that makes life meaningful for me would suggest or imply that there is something, a "what' out there in life that is supposed to make life meaningful for me. Then, I would have to laboriously search for it in the world and things around me, I would have to wait for it to come to me, etc. All this would eventually lead to despair and depression. I do not think that this is the case; rather, this should be looked at differently.

There is no "what' out there that "ought" to make life meaningful for me. Whatever it is that makes life meaningful for me must be by my creation - I make life meaningful for me. I do not expect it from persons - They are fickle, weak and unreliable. I do not expect it from the world - The world has the laws of nature governing it. I do  not expect it from things - Material things do not make life meaningful, they are just things to be used. 

I make life meaningful for me - I make it, I take the bull by the horn, I make certain choices, I eliminate certain false and non-working beliefs, I form a certain positive disposition, I set possible goals and work toward achieving them. I realize that I have limitations and, as Baruch Spinoza says, that good and evil - success and failure - are just two aspects of nature. Hence, I don't expect so much from life; and yet, I do not dine with mediocrity.

Making life meaningful is my duty. It is a task that I cannot leave to others or allow to be decided by others.

FRIAR ANTHONY MARY OBIALASOR

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