The meaning of Life - Essay Example

The Meaning of Life There's a famous adage that says "Life is what we make it." In life there are so much difficulties and inequities that you have to live up with. These difficulties we encounter in daily life typically have existence independent of us and are entities in themselves that do not rely on anything else to characterize their nature. This metaphysical impulse lies at the heart, not only of Western philosophy, but of all Western science, leading physicists to seek a general field theory, or as it has come to be known, "a theory of everything" (Johnson & Lakoff 1999, p. 358). In biology, there is a similar quest for a theory of life.

Such theories seek to find some essence that characterizes the behavior of things in some general domain of study: physical phenomena, life, the mind, language, and so on. Questions like "What is the mind" or "What is life" presuppose the meaningfulness of such a quest for general knowledge. We do assume that there is a nature of things, and we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at higher and higher levels, defined by ever more general categories of things.A person will somehow seek for self-actualization.

They say, in becoming self-actualized, you already stop seeking because you already have achieved a concept of the meaning of your existence. Thus, people get some good education, earn some money, build a good family and do something that will eventually follow the dreams they have been yearning for. And yet, some people discover later on that getting what you want could still not satisfy the questions about the meaning of their lives. People have to struggle to achieve these things and it is in their quest that they learn lessons about life.

Every triumph and every failure adds something up to yourself and you always strive to become better the next time around. Apart from our internal struggles in how we achieve the lives we want, there so many external things that also influence on how we live our lives. As we look around, we will realize that our very existence is attacked by overpowering enemies in varied forms. Death is a night stalker that has come undetected, its savagery is often felt in war, poverty, famine, hunger and other hideous things.

Internal conflicts have also taken their toll inside us. We suffer from our selfishness, greed, envy and much worse, apathy. We might say that the resources to remedy these problems around us and the odds are far more overwhelming. Nonetheless, the solutions are just around the corner, and may even be within ourselves. Staying alive and struggling through all these difficulties are challenges we have to face. It is how we deal with all these things that we discover the meaning of our life. In going through my own life, I believe everyone's meaning of life is based on how we have been nurturing ourselves to become who we are.

Everyone has different needs for different reasons. These different goals and motives provide the satisfactory environment that we want. Through interacting positively with the people around you and your family, we somehow get to process slowly our way through self-actualization. Fact is, I was brought up by a single parent; an uneducated mother and a drug user. Unfortunately, I had become a single mother myself, at a young age. Seeing the bad things make me want to see life differently, so I vowed never to use drugs and I will seek to get my child into college.

My motivation is my child and I vow not to continue the vicious cycle of drug abuse so prevalent in my family. There may be bad things that occur around us but it is up to us to choose on how we conquer these things from influencing us. We can commit mistakes, but it is not the end. These failures make us stronger human beings. In becoming better persons, we could foster love to other people, which would later translate love in return. Thus, I deem we create the meanings of our lives ourselves.

Work CitedJohnson, Mark & Lakoff, George. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1999..