Sooner or later, we all think: what is the most important thing in life? Why do we even live? Where are we going and what should be this path? These issues must be resolved. Knowing the meaning of life, you can understand the meaning of death.
What is the most important thing in life?
The desire to know the purpose of his stay on earth distinguishes us from animals. “A man without a goal always wanders,” said the ancient philosopher Seneca.
It is difficult to unwind a tangled ball of life's twists and turns from birth, but you can try to do this from a very definite and obvious end - death, which is the result of human life. If you look from this angle, it will become clear that human life is meaningless and illusory, because its most important stage is not taken into account - death.
Meanings - fallacies:
1. The meaning of life is life itself. The phrase, of course, is beautiful, but completely "empty"! It is clear that we do not sleep for the sake of sleep, but to restore our body. And we breathe not for the sake of breathing, but for the oxidizing processes necessary for the body to occur.
2. The main thing in life is self-realization. You can often hear what’s most important in life - realize your dreams and opportunities. You can achieve success in various fields: politics, art, family, etc.
This view is not new. And Aristotle believed that the most important thing in life is success, valor and achievement.
A man, of course, must achieve his goals and develop. But to make it the meaning of life is a mistake. In the context of the inevitability of death, it does not matter: a person realized or not. Death equalizes everyone. Neither self-realization, nor life successes can be taken to the other world!
3. Pleasure is what matters
Even the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus argued that the purpose of life is to receive pleasure, achieve bliss and peace. The cult of consumption and pleasure flourishes in modern society. But Epicurus also noted that one cannot live for pleasure without reconciling one's desires with ethics. And in our society, no one does this. Living for pleasure calls for advertising, talk shows, reality shows, numerous TV shows. We read, see, hear calls to take everything from life, to catch luck “by the tail”, “break away” in full, etc.
The cult of pleasure is inextricably linked with the cult of consumption. To enjoy, we need to order, buy, win. So we turn into meaningless “half-people”, for whom the main thing in life is to drink, eat, satisfy sexual needs, sleep, dress up, walk, etc. Man himself limits the importance of his life to the satisfaction of primitive needs.
Pleasure cannot be the meaning of life, if only for one simple reason: it passes. Any need brings satisfaction only for a while, and then arises again. In our pursuit of pleasures and earthly goods, we are like drug addicts in need of the next dose of pleasure. Such a perception ultimately turns into emptiness and mental crisis. We live as if we were going to live forever. And only death shows the deceit of the consumer trend.
4. The meaning of life - in close people
Often it seems to us that the meaning of life is in parents, children, spouse. Many say so: “He is everything to me! I live for him. ” Of course, loving, helping to go through life, sacrificing something for the sake of relatives is rightly and completely natural. We all want to have a family, to love and raise children. But can this be made the meaning of life? Actually, this is a dead end. Dissolving in a loved one, we sometimes forget about the basic needs of our souls.
Any person is mortal and having once lost a loved one, we will inevitably lose the incentive to live on. It will be possible to get out of this grave crisis if one finds one's true true destiny. Although you can "switch" to another object and make sense of it. So some do. But such a need for a symbiotic relationship is already a psychological disorder.
You will never find the meaning of your stay on earth if you look for it among the above. To find the most important thing in life, you need to change the point of view, and this requires knowledge.
Man has always been interested in the question of his destiny, people have faced the same problems before as we did. At all times there were troubles, lies, betrayal, emptiness of the soul, catastrophe, despair, illness and death. People coped with this. And we can take advantage of this colossal store of knowledge that the previous generation has accumulated. Instead, we dismiss this invaluable experience. We use the knowledge of our ancestors in medicine, mathematics, use technological inventions, and on the main issue - understanding our existence - we reject their knowledge.
And our ancestors saw the meaning of their being in the education of themselves, their souls, self-development and approach to God, recognized the afterlife and the immortality of the soul. All earthly goods and needs lost their value in the face of death.
The main thing begins after death. Then everything falls into place and makes sense. Our life is a school, training, testing and preparation for eternity. It is logical that the most important thing now is to prepare for it as best as possible. The quality of our life in the eternal world depends on how responsibly we approach learning in a “school”.
Our stay on earth is like a period of fetal development, because being in the womb for nine months is also a lifetime. No matter how nice and pleasant, calm and comfortable a child was not in this world, he will have to leave him. The misfortunes and pain that we encounter on the way can be compared with the pain experienced by the infant during childbirth: they are inevitable and everything passes through them, they are temporary, although they seem endless at times, they are insignificant in comparison with the joy of meeting with the pleasures of a new life.
Pascal's bet
The French scientist Blaise Pascal wrote several philosophical works, one of which is called "Pascal's Paris." In it, Pascal talks with an imaginary atheist. He believes that we are all forced to bet on whether there is God and life after death.
If there is no God, then the believer does not lose anything - he simply lives with dignity and dies - such is his end.
If He is, but a man has lived all his life, on the basis of the conviction that he does not expect anything after death, dying - he loses everything! Is such a risk justified? Risking eternal happiness for a short stay in the ghostly world!
The imaginary atheist exclaims that "he is not playing these games." To which Pascal objects: “It is not in our will to play or not play,” recalling the inevitability of choice. We all, regardless of our desire, are involved in this bet, because everyone has to make a choice (and no one will do it for us): to believe in a future life or not.
In any case, the wiser is the one who lives on the basis that the Creator of all things is and the soul is immortal. This is not about the blind hope that “there” is something or someone, but about the conscious choice of faith in the One God, which today, in the present, gives a person meaningfulness, calmness and joy.
Here it is - a medicine for the soul and finding a calm and happy life in this and another world. Take and use. But no! We don’t even want to try.
Man resists the acquisition of truth, namely, everything connected with religion. Why does this resistance and rejection arise even after understanding that the most important thing in life? Because we all, to a certain extent, live in our fictional world in which we feel comfortable and cozy, we all know and understand about him. More often this world is based not on a sober assessment of oneself and reality, but on changeable and deceptive feelings, which is why reality in front of us is presented in a very distorted form.
And if a person makes a choice in favor of faith in God, finds the true meaning of his being, then he will have to redraw and rebuild his whole life in accordance with this knowledge. As a result, the pillars on which our entire worldview was held are crumbling. This is quite a lot of stress for everyone. After all, we are all very attached to our usual life. In addition, we are afraid of working on ourselves. After all, on the way to the truth you will have to make efforts, remake yourself, work on your soul. To go along this road is laziness, especially if a person is already fixated on material needs and pleasures. Therefore, we are content with surrogates, which are worthless. Is it not better to make an effort and exchange imaginary comfort for true happiness!
Injustice triumphs
For many, the stumbling block to a sincere faith in God is the thought of the injustice of the world. Those who live with dignity suffer, children who did not manage to commit any sin, and those who repair dishonor on the earth prosper. From the standpoint of earthly life, if you believe that everything ends in death - the argument is very sound. Then it is really impossible to understand the prosperity of the unrighteous and the suffering of the righteous.
If you look at the situation from the position of eternity, then everything becomes clear. Good or evil is considered in this case not from the point of view of being on earth, but the benefits for man in infinite life. In addition, suffering, you realize a very important fact - this world is damaged and it is impossible to achieve absolute happiness in it. This place is not for pleasure, but for training, study, struggle, overcoming, etc.
Eternal happiness, free from any longing and sorrow, can be comprehended only through the realization of all the sorrows of this world in isolation from God. Only by feeling "in your own skin" all the sorrow of this world can one regret the break with the real source of happiness - God.