I have recently started to think about life for the first time. The meaning of life, what I want to get out of it. How I feel. I have been trying to put aside everything I have been taught and believe and try to reanalyze everything. My head is a little messed up at the moment; with new ideas and changing views often. I must say I am not religious or spiritual. I like the scientific method and rational thinking. I use the word "soul" to mean that little something that humans have that machines do not have. Maybe it is just the ability to feel.


"Work hard, play hard" - that was the extent of my guidance with regards to understanding what life is about and how to live it. Everything else I have been taught has been purely academic. Work hard, play hard... what that means to me is getting a career working 9 till 5, then at the weekend get off your head on drugs (such as alcohol). In fact that is what many people do here, and I am made to feel like I am "pissing my life away" by not living like this. I am the strange one.

Western culture teaches inattention. We must always be busy doing something with something to show for it. If you don't you are just lazy. We need our HDTV and our music. Constant input and distraction to stop us being bored.

We are judged to be successful in life if we have achieved things such as good grades at school and a well paying job. Expensive car and lots of material possessions means we are doing well. We think that buying possessions will make us happy. They may do for a short time, but deep down and long term they do not.


So.. what is life for? I want to be happy and my life is for living. I want to experience the richness and the experiences that life has to offer. I want to be content with myself and with life. I do not want to be distracted from life and feeling. The way to help achieve this may be with mindfulness meditation. I am only just starting to explore this. Mindfulness meditation is not about doing anything, it is about simply being. It is about staying present and aware with calm and focused attention. Not just having thoughts and feelings, but being aware of them.



Tell me what you think of this. Agree or disagree?

imation

one could argue that while meditating you are missing our on the living of your life by reflecting on it. to really feel all the emotions life has to throw at you, you would get out there and win and lose and jump and fall and laugh and cry and so on...
if you meditate you will be sitting and thinking about the emotions you feel right now, or have felt before, not living through new ones

excon

Hello DMA:

Any culture is bad for your soul if you're at the effect of it. You say Western culture teaches certain things. I'd put it another way. Western culture offers us choices. To me, choices are good for the soul.

In my view, if you live your own life regardless of the culture, you have a shot at finding what you're looking for.

excon

Choux

When you are young, you must go out in the world and have many different experiences and many different relationships.....live, make mistakes or have successes, learn all you can about people and living life.

The time for reflection is when you are old, and hopefully, wise, from making sense out of all your life experience.

Don't try to figure out "the meaning of life" when you are young...go out and experience life. There is nothing to figure out if you don't have all that experience. You can't save yourself from some suffering by being cerebral.