Is life worth living? History and philosophy have been given to us by the best mind that existed long before we have tried to determine the worth of life, but the actual answer is that the time from birth to death is too short to determine the worth of life. But we all play with the best tools that we have, with the best possible strategy, so that we can bear less pain and suffering and more joy and bliss.
1. Human Lives
It took billions of years of the process for creating an environment that could generate and sustain life. Mother Earth gave every possible care and nourishment for the betterment of life.
Out of all living beings, humans got the gift of consciousness and the ability to change the environment with more beneficial results. We took that gift with utmost grace and then slowly forgot the real meaning of how it could have been used to save the environment and not destroy it.
Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash / Copyright 2016
As already said, humans are wonderful creatures that can manifest anything and make it happen in real life with compassion. empathy and hard work. What we lack the most is the right direction and mindset that distracts us from the many pleasures and luxurious things that are present in the world, and we get lost in our path.
What we need to understand is that if we choose a path and work aggressively to achieve that goal, we will definitely get the pleasures and luxurious experiences that we crave, but instead, we keep on losing track and simply end up just imagining them, which makes our life miserable and gives us plenty of time to overthink about everything that went wrong.
The other tool which we are experts in using is the blaming tool. For every situation that gave us results less than what we ever expected, we tend to blame others, sometimes our situation, sometimes ourselves, but we never take charge to change it and end up giving all the reasons for our life’s worth to something or someone else that has nothing to do with it.
Human lives are designed by the unknown with tremendous capabilities that can be extracted and shaped according to our will at any point in life with sheer will and hard work. We may think that our life is not that worthwhile, simply overthinking about the past and the future completely neglecting our present moment, which disables us to create anything that may give us a purpose and worth.
The human race has evolved to that stage of life where we know no limitations and the biggest asset that we could have ever achieved is working in coordination that make even the impossible thing possible.
Maybe we belong to a class of people that is less privileged, or maybe we have suffered a trauma that no one can ever imagine. The mere perceptional change can bring tremendous results in no time, and learning to change the pivot of perception is a matter of time and practice which is gained through knowledge and experience. We learn and move on.
2. A Meaningless Life
The very concept of a meaningless life arises from the sense of dissatisfaction that may be present due to multiple failures or sometimes negligence. What we tend to look at in utmost despair and pain are those things that make it more futile and weaken our ability to think and find a way out of it.
This makes the whole process of living a purposeful life change into a meaningless life that is nothing but a burden to the ones that care for us. There is an infinite reason why we start to think that way, and it ranges from some very small materialistic things to a deep-down emotional craving. That is why in many ancient cultures, practising detachment has been taught since the beginning of life.
In the modern world, where comfort is provided with a lot of advanced technologies and techniques, we really cannot even stop thinking and simply let go of all the distractions that we get in our daily lives.
Looking more deeply into the causes of the patterns and habits that lead to a meaningless life.
2.1 Workspace –
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash/ Copyright 2019
The office space and peers we work with have a deep impact on the mindset of any person. The friend, the enemy, the competition—everything matters in determining whether we will be able to survive or not.
A competitive environment in an office is a must as it promotes growth, but when we start looking at others’ growth and getting jealous of it instead of working on ourselves and getting growth, that stops every possible positive outcome of every task that we are assigned to do, and one failure leads to another and so on until we realize and change the perspective of the situation that we are in.
2.2 Mindset –
Photo by Katrina Wright on Unsplash/ Copyright 2019
After a certain age, we tend to trust more in our friends and have a major impact from their opinions on us rather than our mindset. A psychological study says that we are not better than the four people with whom we usually hang out.
This is also the time when we start taking responsibility for our families and no matter how hard we suffer we never wish to bother them and burden them with our difficulties. Thinking and working in such a mindset leads to stagnation of the mind, and slowly we lose sight of the light.
All that remains is a dark well that has nothing but futility and pain in it. Opening ourselves to the family and well-wishers and becoming receptive to their ideas and changing our mindset slowly heals all the dark wounds that we have received all along our path of dealing with everything on our own.
2.3 Friends –
Having a group of friends that will listen when we need to talk, make us aware of our potential, help us think in different ways, and most importantly, stay with us till all the dark clouds pass by is a real kind of blessing. But the same group of friends can sometimes make conditions worse than ever.
We can choose whom to befriend and that gives us space to analyze and welcome the people that are good for our mental health.
2.4 Purpose –
We always dream of multiple big things when we are young to have luxuries of the world and give our well-wishers the things that they need. But by the time we reach a certain age above 50, only very small percentages of people can achieve what they initially want to become.
So where is the problem? The answer to this in precise terms is purpose: a goal that you live for not only gives you the direction to live but also the energy to do work that initially seems impossible.
Only the people who have a desired goal can work in a direction to achieve it one day, and the people who hover around multiple ideas and get influenced by the more people they meet and the more knowledge they gain remain as broke as they used to be when they started.
The idea of simply selecting a goal or purpose and deliberately working towards achieving it seems very simple, but accomplishing it in real life is tougher than we think, which is why only a few per cent of people in the world become successful and lead a meaningful life.
Imagine a ship that has left the port with no destination; it will reach nowhere. But a ship that has left the port with a defined path will reach its destination, even if it takes time.
2.5 Meaningful Life (Is Life Worth Living) –
Some people who just want to serve a greater good than their interests live life and suffer through hardship that is unimaginable for us, but those people out there live it and never complain about it. They show us that living a life is worth it. It doesn’t mean that we will need the same path, but having a path is more important to living a full life.
A meaningless life does not have any meaning, and you continue to live it; rather, a meaningless life is one that you live without the thirst for finding meaning and without exploring everything that is around you.
3. Life’s Worth Beyond Philosophies –
Unconditional value is the love provided by mother nature to her beings, and that is the main force that promotes and sustains life on this planet. We can always choose the way we live but not the way we die and the decisions we make are the wheels of how our fortune unfolds towards our end.
From time unknown, various philosophers and great thinkers have tried explaining the worth of life in their different philosophical frameworks. Every philosopher has taken a different aspect of life and tried to explain how it integrates into the larger equation of life.
There are a few points that we can take as conclusions from those long explanations of life in different cultures:
1. We always have a choice and the decisions we make, in return make us what we are. This philosophy is presented out there in many forms, such as” we decide our destiny” and “we are the creators of our success”. The prime focus of this philosophy is that change requires action, and when you want a desired result, you need to plan an action in a manner that gives you the same result you desire.
The main problem comes in going from dreaming about deciding to take it because there always remains a hidden fear behind the comfort that hinders our plan for uncomfortable success. Overcoming that fear is hard, but once done, there is no going back.
2. We don’t know when things can turn around in our favour and suddenly the whole bitterness of life can become blissful. The unpredictable nature of life is what makes it amazing, and it also opens the portal to unlimited opportunities to rearrange every scattered piece of life that we have witnessed breaking down.
Not losing hope is not just a tool, but sometimes it’s the pivot that changes everything that we have known so far.
3. Karma is not a bitch! It’s the only rule that makes justice fair and clear. What we sow shall we reap has been taught to us for ages, but surely by seeing how the coming generations are playing the game of life, we can say that we have failed in making them understand the lesson of karma.
Photo by Дмитрий Хрусталев-Григорьев on Unsplash/ Copyright 2021
If someone doesn’t believe in the rule of karma and that what he does will surely land upon himself, then one can also understand that harming others gives no pleasure unless you are cruel, which is not possible for the average human being. We should at least not intentionally do bad to others.
4. Death is not the end; history has always repeatedly said that our pain and misery cannot be ended by death. The cycle continues, the decisions we make all along life are the ones that decide our fortune.
For someone who doesn’t believe in the concept of death and reincarnation, let’s just imagine what you want to be remembered as a person who just lived the average life by complaining every day about how it sucked, or a person who lived a life with utmost curiosity and was generous enough to help others despite helping not being in his capabilities.
5. Life is worth living, we are bound to the endless good deeds that have been done to us in some way or the other and to repay that in time is the debt that we are burdened with. A life worth living may not be an adventurous, rich, luxurious life but the life of the average. So, live a life and work in the best possible way to be useful.
An average life, if we try to sum it up, is a life that may not have started well, but the person learned every day and did everything he could to survive his situation. He did the best out of the worst and not only making himself survive the nightmare but help the people that are connected to him to go through their tough times.
6. We live in an accursed world, where everyone is at war with fortune, with people, and with thoughts. The online world that we see has too many filters; everything is adjusted to look and seem perfect. We believe what we see and never even consider the pain anyone might have gone through to achieve any achievement.
Nothing is perfect and everything is faked for a small time to look perfect, we should be in the trap of looking good and not living good or else we will always remain lost in the myths of reality and dreams.
That is not a life that anyone wants, but by the grace of the online world, everyone has been in a phase that only has darkness in it. We need to change and start understanding the core concepts of mindset, psychology, culture, values, discipline, and joy.
4. Understanding the Other Side:
Sometimes what we may assume when someone asks for help can be a very casual and simple thing, but we never know the kind of courage the other person has put into making the effort to open up. The desire to be accepted and be recognized always remains hidden in the depth of the heart of people but we never talk or express about it because we are not taught about it.
Society won’t get better if we don’t start taking things seriously and making efforts to resolve them. Small disputes may sometimes have a much larger impact than we could have ever imagined. Giving a helping hand is rare but a courageous act.
We may not understand this now, but at some point, in our lives, we may also need someone’s hand, so creating an atmosphere around our friends and family is our duty.
Photo by kilarov zaneit on Unsplash/Copyright 2018
The worst thing that any person who doesn’t understand the worth of life can do is end it. the most extreme and difficult act that we never bother to understand before putting our judgement ruthlessly into practice, even in the case of the death of a life. We should try to initiate this change.
How to change this can be a matter of debate, but the least we can do is start talking initially about well-being rather than asking about the café or movie or gossiping about others. The real reason why people close themselves off is that whenever they have tried to expose their vulnerability, all they got back in return was a mock or, at worst, negligence.
We need to be the person we are rather than faking or trying to be the person who has certain kinds of fame. That fame or likeability as of now may seem like it is forever, but as some time passes by in every case, that goes away. The person moves on, and no one ever remains the same as they were the previous year.
Change is the only constant, and we should start living with it rather than chasing it till death.
We are not trained to become the helper that is needed in a given hour, but we can always learn and understand the perspective of others as well. people have the exceptional skill of finding a way out when they have someone to listen and the other person always has the opportunity to learn from it,
Here is a kit and tips that may help in dealing with people and sometimes our dark times:
World Suicide Prevention Toolkit
How To Handle Distress Calls At Work
Checkout – What is Mental Health Crisis: A Complete Guide on It
5. Conclusion –
Every single life on the planet is rare, and therefore it is hard to find its worth. The decisions that make our life also affects the lives of other people who are bound to be with us.
Asking for help is sometimes an act that requires courage, sometimes more than jumping from the Eiffel Tower. It is needed to be accepted and discussed with the utmost respect. To create such an environment, the first and foremost step is to change our perspective. All it takes is dismantling the old beliefs that we have been taught over the years and learning and practising new beliefs.
Death is the ultimate reality and not the end, so we should never dream of getting Nirvana after that. The life that has been gifted to us has a purpose, and all we need to do is find it with deliberate effort, which also has fun. Karma is the rule of the gods, so we should respect it no matter how much hate we may have for it.
There are various ways of living a life and exploring its worth because it cannot be determined without being lived. To have a goal or purpose is something that determines the path that we move on, and having a path is far better than hovering around with a void.
The difference between right and wrong is sometimes clear, but due to a lack of patience and greed, despite knowing the facts, we choose the wrong, which has an impact. An impact that has unbearable weight comes in our path, not how fast we run. Choosing wisely despite the odds is the only step we need to follow to let our path be in our sight, or else we will get lost in the never-ending void.
If we are about to answer the question “Is life worth living?“. It’s a big yes, we just need exploration and acceptance. This skill has to be developed while we live, keeping in mind to keep having fun while we play the game of life.
Last Updated on by Steffy Michael
