Meaningful Life

People often have an assortment of ideas and beliefs towards the question of “What is a meaningful life”. Some say it is achieved by a gathering of wealth and physical pleasure, some say it is simply obtained by focusing just on itself. However, a meaningful life is more than that. It is accomplished by having critical examination of life, obtaining satisfaction, and fulfilling one’s duties.
There is dire importance in examining one’s life. It constantly needed in order to be a successful person and to do well in life. One should examine themselves on these two aspects in life, one is to set up appropriate goals according to their individual ability, and two is to reflect on their past experiences no matter is the failures or successes. Goal setting is a powerful process in the examination of life, it gives one a good ideal future, and to motivate one to turn their vision of that future into reality. It gives one a clear direction in life and by knowing precisely where to go, individuals can easily achieve their own meanings in life. However, some goals can be out of one’s reach and becomes pressures and obstacles which would block one’s path from going towards a meaningful life, so adjusting one’s goals according to individual’s ability, becomes important towards the outcome which one want to get from the examination of life. Other then setting goals, the examination of life also contained the reflection towards the past, and to reflect on failures and success in one’s individual’s life. Reflection is the key to inner peace, happiness, and also the way to understand one’s individuality, and role in life. It is also an valuable process to understand how one made their life changing choices and decisions, which it would affect and obtained a meaningful life. The reflection towards the mistakes and success can successfully change one’s future; it would protect one from getting bump it in to the obstacles which was put out in the path of achieving their meaning in life. However, some people still holds the idea of being ignorant in life can achieve meaningfulness in life. The idea of being ignorant was once introduced by Thomas Grey, an English poet from the 1760s. He’s quote of “ignorant is bless” introduced his idea of in order to achieve meaningfulness in life, that one has have a lack of knowledge and awareness about the environment around them, can eventually achieve their true meaning in life. Though, the methods of being ignorant to achieve a meaningful life is easier than examining, but being ignorant can leads to a unpredictable future and limiting your ways to go avoid the “break walls” in life, and by examining one’s individual’s life can expand more choices and solutions to go around the brick wall. Socrates once said that “an unexamined life is not worth living”, by that he meant a life without reflection would leads to a monotonous life. Although ignorant life can lead to primarily suitability in life, but an examined life would be a worthwhile life. Achieving life satisfaction is the way a person perceives a meaningful life. It is a measure of well being as well as a cognitive and global judgement. Martin Seligman, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, uses a formula for happiness that encompasses the factors that go into general happiness. The formula is H= S + C + V, which H stranded for a person’s enduring level of happiness, S is the set range, C is the circumstances of a person’s life, and V are the factors under a person’s voluntary control. Life satisfaction can reflected on one’s experiences from the past and also the present that have a great positive impact on the person. These experiences can encourage people to chase and attain their goals. People often link happiness with the satisfaction in life which eventually leads to a meaningful life. Happiness and life satisfaction are central objectives to most people’s wellbeing in life. They have become key concerns for range of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and economics. Although happiness can sometimes be equal to the meanings in life, but satisfaction it is the key to long lasting happiness. Other than achieving happiness, achieving success in life can also lead to life satisfaction. A pattern of success in life which one creates can be eventually piled up as the life satisfaction. As an external satisfaction, successes can build up one’s confidence in life as well it would give him or her trust for life. The theory that Jeremy Bentham introduced that pleasure equals to good agreed that satisfaction leads to a meaningful life. He’s opinion on having more pleasure that quantifiably translates to that you are enjoying yourself, and a good life is a life in which pleasurable feelings are experienced in regular or predictable ways throughout people’s lives. He felt that whether a life was a good one or not could be determined mathematically, in which to calculate the amount of pleasure that one experienced and mines the pain that one is feeling, the sum indicates how well he’s or her life is going. Bentham once said “It is the greatest pleasure to the greatest number of people which is the measure of happiness in life.” Happiness would and will be obtained by patterns of pleasure and satisfaction. At the end of the day, pleasure derived from several of realms in life such as: work, school and relationship which come down to a greater satisfaction of one’s life. The greater satisfaction that is a result of a greater pleasure would mean one believes their life is more efficient which there by signifying a meaningful life.
Fulfilling one’s duties confirm one’s identity in life, which eventually gives him or her, the meaningfulness in life. A life duty can mean a number of different things, sometimes duties relates to the role that people play on the stage of life. For example, a beloved mother would give up her job and future for her son to get the best education that he can get. A father would put all of his painstaking effort towards to giving the family the best, keep them fed and a roof over their heads. Another advantage that one would gain from fulfilling their duties is that it gives one an individual purpose in life. He or she instead of wondering around searching for one’s purpose, one who fulfills their duties would have a clear direction in life. Therefore it gives them a meaning in what they desire in life, and at the sometime it would gave them the meaningfulness in life. By fulfilling one’s duty, confidence would form in one’s mind. One’s duties give one a sense of accomplishment. A pattern of accomplishments gives one the encouragement that they are on the appropriate path in life. This encouragement in turn makes them confident about their life and therefore their life is a meaningful life to them. Fulfilling one’s duties can give one a purpose and confidents in life which they by confirms one’s identity in life which to ensure they are living a meaningful life.
Life is filled with choices and one could chose to live life in an ignorant way or a meaningful way. He or she all strives to live a meaningful life. A meaningful life is accomplished by having decisive examination of life, achieving life satisfaction which lead to meaningfulness in life and fulfill individual’s duties. It is often said that a meaningful life is not learned and obtained with a snap of figure; it is a process which it will take years and years to be achieved and understood. It is not the outcome that you made during life that makes it meaningful; it is the process that has truly made life full with purpose and meaning. How one decides or chose to lead a meaningful life is the question that many people ponder about in life.