The Meaning of Life

The people of Trinidad and Tobago and similarly in other islands of the Caribbean are internationally known for our cheerfulness. Yet in human development we fall short. Is it that we laugh our problems away? Perhaps as a people we need a deeper reflection on the meaning of life so as to broaden and deepen the horizon of things that give us joy and pleasure. Ricardo Yepes offers this interesting reflection that can benefit parents and all involved in the formation of others. It is a bit long, but please be patient – it’s worth the read!

1. The question of life’s meaning

The question of life’s meaning is not generally posed when things are going well, but precisely when they are not going according to plan. In fact, reality is stubborn and seems bent on showing us that we are wrong and presenting us with problems and difficulties that wear us out, discourage us, and rob us of our desire to continue fighting. Our inevitable experience of failure in life leads us to question the meaning of our efforts, of our undertakings, and of our life as such. This is how the question of life’s meaning ordinarily arises.

Life requires effort. This shouldn’t surprise us. Struggle in life is natural for every living being and for every person. Life itself is a continual triumph over dangers, illnesses, lack of resources, and death itself. The biological phenomenon of life is a constant struggle crowned by success. Therefore we should not be surprised that things are difficult and require effort.

What is needed to find meaning in life is a justification for one’s efforts, that is a clear objective and purpose for living and working day in and day out. If one has clear objectives in life, one views the efforts involved as part of the path one must travel in order to attain them. Struggle then is seen as something necessary in order to reach one’s goals.

2. The loss of meaning in life

Having clear objectives is the first requirement for mapping out lifetime plans aimed at attaining the goals, values and ideals we set for ourselves. Whoever lacks goals in life also lacks plans. As a result, such a person has no vital tasks in life. This leads to a lack of interest in tasks which are no longer seen as one’s own. Work then becomes an onerous obligation that one carries out without interest, even unwillingly. The absence of projects and tasks seen as one’s own is what occasions the loss of a sense of meaning in life: the lack of ideals.

A person who doesn’t dream has no longings; he doesn’t yearn to fulfill his aspirations in life. Whoever has lost his ideals in life, easily finds himself facing a dull, gray panorama each morning upon waking. This leads to a feeling of weariness and disgust, and to the desire to seek out a world where ideals are present. When one gets up and expects to be unhappy, ill at ease and annoyed by the tasks ahead, then one no longer sees the point of living such a life. One then finds daily life ugly and unattractive: one may not even want to get out of bed because it doesn’t seem worthwhile.

In this situation there are two options. The first is to become convinced that a life such as this is indeed not worth living. One becomes pessimistic, bitter and disgusted with life: a psychological way of “staying in bed.” If this state of mind becomes permanent and no way out is found, it may lead to a feeling of despair and the desire that such a life be over as soon as possible.

There is a broad gamut of possible forms of despair, pessimism, and bitterness. Many people find themselves plunged in one or more of them, with seemingly no way out. Some even lose their desire to live, and may attempt suicide. But such extreme despair isn’t the usual reaction. More common is the feeling that failure is inevitable, or that nothing is worthwhile, or that all effort is useless in the face of an inexorable fate. Some even conclude that, although life is absurd, the best solution is to live as though we believed in something so as not to face a world completely devoid of meaning.

These solutions turn their back on the possibility of happiness and meaning in life. Neither is seen as possible, and therefore it makes no sense to try to attain them. According to these people, one can only be happy to the extent that one forgets this dark and somber background to existence. This is a bitter position that turns life into an unbearable burden. Therefore few are willing to maintain this attitude. To do so, in fact, is often pathological.

The second solution, through more realistic, somewhat resembles the first. But it is less pessimistic: it consists in trying to place one’s daily life in a kind of parenthesis, to try to forget about it, and focus one’s attention elsewhere as one struggles to get through the day. Such persons deep down are very unhappy: everyday realities make them ill at ease. The most obvious escape then is to flee from oneself and from the life one is living. The easiest way to do so is to seek “alternative worlds,” to lose oneself in the external, to fragment one’s life into countless moments of diversion, seeking to “have a good time” at the expense of who one really is. This is a frivolous, atomized existence, set on exploiting all of life’s momentary pleasures, whether great or small, legitimate or illegitimate.

In the end this solution leaves a great vacuum in one’s life, and fails to resolve the question of one’s own identity. Such people seem to be intent on forgetting who they truly are. This question doesn’t interest them: they turn their back on the “interior world,” seeking only what is exterior, which helps to silence questions that ultimately have no answer.

3. Tasks that fill one’s life

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But in second place, and to a much greater extent, the meaning of life is found in those to whom one dedicates everything that one does, feels and loves. Whoever has found a love in life has already discovered life’s meaning: the only thing missing is for the beloved person to correspond to our love. The beloved becomes the object of our efforts and work; what we acquire through them, and the struggle they entail, become a gift for the beloved one’s benefit and happiness.

The deepest and most exalted state that a person is capable of is a love that is corresponded to. Nothing is more fulfilling in life, not even bequeathing to mankind a great work of art or engineering. Neither power, dominion over nature, great knowledge, nor one’s own artistic development are capable of giving us what we receive from a smile from someone who loves us. Devoting oneself to a person is worth more than possessing the whole universe without that person. Therefore the best apprenticeship for finding the meaning of life is to learn how to love, which is quite different from simply “feeling love,” since loving means treating the beloved well, as the person deserves, seeking to make them happy.

4. Sharing life with others

There is a corollary to what we have said above: discovering the meaning of life is not a task that can be carried out alone. In the first place, because the tasks that stem from one’s personal ideals are undertaken not so much because they come to mind spontaneously as because others offer us the opportunity to carry them out, or interest us in such goals, so that they become our own. The tasks that fill one’s life often arise from opportunities encountered and made use of. When one does not take advantage of an opportunity one loses it, perhaps because one didn’t realize its importance.

In the second place, life’s meaning is more easily discovered when we share mutual goods with others. The more deeply united we are to them, the richer our sharing in these goods, and the less alone we are. Companionship with others, expressed by friendship, assistance, love, or participating in common tasks, helps us to feel useful, understood, supported and enhanced by the common task that unites us and in a certain sense protects us.

Those with a vivid sense of the presence of others in their life, who make of their life a continual conversation and a mutual task carried out with others, are so much the less threatened by being overwhelmed by the question of the meaning of life. There is less chance of becoming paralyzed by personal failure and succumbing to the position described at the beginning. The issue of life’s meaning doesn’t arise when things are going well for us, in the company of others, because in such circumstances we have a clear justification for our efforts.

Bibliography

J. R. Ayllon, En torno al hombre, Rialp, Madrid, 1993, 123–188, 233–248.

Julian Marias, La felicidad, Alianza, Madrid, 1988, 209ff.

Julian Marias, Breve tratado de la ilusion, Alianza, Madrid, 1991.

R. Y.