Quest for Meaning of Life: Why Are We Here?
Here are some questions for you; questions that have plagued the minds of thousands of people and philosophers alike, why are we here? Who are we? What's the meaning of life? I know those questions are probably some of the most cliche questions ever existed, yet no one has found the definite answers to them yet.
Let me give you a run-down of what happened to lead me to this dark philosophical hole. It's been a rough day so far, and rough days usually bring about Dark Emo Catherine. And DEC decided to start the day off by questioning her worth and existence. Be warned before you proceed, this is going to be a depressing post. Yes, it's going to make you question a lot of things in your life, but reflecting back on your life is usually a trip down feels-ville. I don't mean to be a downer. I don't want to drag you down a spiral of desire, but the truth sucks, but to ignore it is not usually blissful...in the long run.
Links for all the data down below:
Our average lifespan (at least for Americans) is 28,835 days or 79 years. By the time we're 15, we've spent 5,475 days. We spent 8,477 days sleeping, leaving us with 14,883 days. That's only about half of our life we have left. We'll spend an average of 1,635 days cooking and eating. We'll work for 3,202 days...(or spend our working hour blogging). Traveling and getting to places will take the total of about 1,099 days, or more if you live in a city like I do. 2,676 days will be spent watching TV or some sort of entertainment. Guess how many more days we have left? 6,271 days. Chores, shopping or taking care of our pets take 1,576 days. 564 days will be spent for our family and friends. We'll spend 671 days grooming or going to the bathroom. 720 days will be spent for community services or classes. The number of days that we have left for ourselves is 2,740 which is the equivalent of 7.5 years.
Imagine that. If we live to 79 years old, we'll only have about 10% of that time to ourselves. If you think about it, humans are possibly the only species that have to pay to have a place to live on earth, and we definitely spend a lot of time earning our place. The rest of our time, some would say it will be the meaning of our lives. But what does that even mean? How do you even know? There are people, including me, whose meaning of life would be to leave some sort of legacy. The idea of poofing out of existence is too bleak for me. But let's say you leave some sort of footprint in life world to proof that you actually lived at one point. There's a high possibility that humans may go extinct one day. With that extinct show, the so-called "footprint" will vanish along with it. What's the point then?
An Australian nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware gathered some regrets of the dying patients that she worked with. According to her, the top five regrets that the dying patients had were:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I told you that this was going to be morbid. I'm not even going to go into the details of the "who are we?" question, because that would only damper things even more, and it would be quite long, too. In A Nutshell did a very good job of explaining life and death. Check out the video here.
To be honest, I don't even know why I'm writing this. I guess I'm just lost and confused. One of my favorite pastimes is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wonder if I'm even real and what will happen when I die. It's one of the reasons why I hate thinking about time and age. Every second that ticks by signals another second closer to death. Yeah, I'm fun at parties.
Although a lot of things in this universe are out of our hands, the only option we have in our quest of meaning in life is to breathe and enjoy all the 7.5 years that we have for ourselves.
I need your thoughts on this. What do you think? Leave your comments down below. And if you've slipped into despair after reading this, let me know, too.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOCaacO8wus
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying
Let me give you a run-down of what happened to lead me to this dark philosophical hole. It's been a rough day so far, and rough days usually bring about Dark Emo Catherine. And DEC decided to start the day off by questioning her worth and existence. Be warned before you proceed, this is going to be a depressing post. Yes, it's going to make you question a lot of things in your life, but reflecting back on your life is usually a trip down feels-ville. I don't mean to be a downer. I don't want to drag you down a spiral of desire, but the truth sucks, but to ignore it is not usually blissful...in the long run.
Links for all the data down below:
 |
| Credit: theodysseyonline.com |
Imagine that. If we live to 79 years old, we'll only have about 10% of that time to ourselves. If you think about it, humans are possibly the only species that have to pay to have a place to live on earth, and we definitely spend a lot of time earning our place. The rest of our time, some would say it will be the meaning of our lives. But what does that even mean? How do you even know? There are people, including me, whose meaning of life would be to leave some sort of legacy. The idea of poofing out of existence is too bleak for me. But let's say you leave some sort of footprint in life world to proof that you actually lived at one point. There's a high possibility that humans may go extinct one day. With that extinct show, the so-called "footprint" will vanish along with it. What's the point then?
An Australian nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware gathered some regrets of the dying patients that she worked with. According to her, the top five regrets that the dying patients had were:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
 |
Credit: misshansteff.wordpress.com |
I told you that this was going to be morbid. I'm not even going to go into the details of the "who are we?" question, because that would only damper things even more, and it would be quite long, too. In A Nutshell did a very good job of explaining life and death. Check out the video here.
To be honest, I don't even know why I'm writing this. I guess I'm just lost and confused. One of my favorite pastimes is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wonder if I'm even real and what will happen when I die. It's one of the reasons why I hate thinking about time and age. Every second that ticks by signals another second closer to death. Yeah, I'm fun at parties.
Although a lot of things in this universe are out of our hands, the only option we have in our quest of meaning in life is to breathe and enjoy all the 7.5 years that we have for ourselves.
I need your thoughts on this. What do you think? Leave your comments down below. And if you've slipped into despair after reading this, let me know, too.
Love, Catherine
XOXO
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOCaacO8wus
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying
Comments
Post a Comment