In North American society we hold the rich and famous above everyone as a model for success and goals in our lives. Do these rich and famous people really know the meaning of life, or are they searching from one personal success and blunder to the next?
It only takes one Google search to discover a vast amount of confusion concerning the meaning of life. Many hold the more negative point of view, which is that life is a struggle, so live for the moment. Kanye West has said, “the point of life is getting shit done and being happy”. You will quickly see most all the quotes you find are vague roundabout ways to describe our inability to truly define the meaning of life. This should be concerning to everyone.
It is no surprise then, that North American society sees the meaning of life as an internal meaning. That is to say that the only meaning you can gain is the meaning you make for yourself. This is to assume that meaning gained, hasn’t already been given to us since the beginning. This assumption is seemingly the prevailing thought.
The quote in the featured image from Arnold Schwarzenegger seems accurate. Though you should probably ask yourself, achieve and conquer to what end? What is the meaning in that? Sure, it may be a process to go about life, but it still does not solve the problem of meaning whatsoever. It is scary to assume that people we deem successful know more about the meaning of life than us. However, the matter of fact is that we are still searching for the same thing everyone else is.
We are born with a natural hunger to be like someone, something, or fit into a certain mold, because we think that meaning is found in what we do. However, for me, it seems logical to look at who made the mold in the first place, as I think the meaning is found in the why before the what was created.
Click here to view Arnold speak on the meaning of life in ten hours.