The Secret and Consequence to the Meaning of Life

For a long time, I pondered, read and thrashed with the idea of what is the meaning of life.

What I found was a wide range of answers:
- The silly: He who dies with the most toys, wins
- The sacred: to serve God or Goddess
- The philosophical: we each define our own meaning
-  The cynical: there is no meaning

Out of all of these answers, at my core, I wanted to find a universal truth that could apply to anyone of any age, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, and any political leanings. 

I suspect everyone on some point in their life has made this mental and spiritual journey to find the meaning in their life. Even Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.  And of course, at the tender age of 2 or 3 our favorite thing to ask our parents (much to their chagrin) is “Why”.  So I supposed the burning need to find this answer is simply human nature.  

So my journey to find this answer began. I read blogs, articles, books, listened to podcasts, spoke with friends and spent quite a bit of time thinking about this.  Whether driving in my car or laying in my hammock, or watching the waves roll in on the beach, this idea of discovering the meaning of life kept coming back to me as a question that nagged me as needing an answer.

And the answer I finally felt was universal and right (at least for me) is:

      The meaning of life is to love and be loved.

It is so simple yet so encompassing of all that life is.

When you love, you care, and when you care you take action to show you love, whether in deeds or words. When you love you take care of others and they take care of you.  And when you feel loved and you truly know how to love, it becomes a very powerful positive cycle, which results in happiness, empowerment, and confidence.

When you don’t feel loved, when you don’t love yourself, you will also find it impossible to be happy. You can go into a powerful negative cycle, resulting in sadness, depression, fear, anxiety. 

So the next time you find yourself in a negative state – ask yourself:
* Do you feel loved?
* Are you loving others well enough?

And if not, take immediate action to love. 
If you are struggling to figure out how to do this try a couple of things:

• Write a list of people who you love and people who love you.
• Write a list of ways you can show love to others – a phone call, letter or text to tell them you love them and why; find a way to help them out; give them a hug.
• Write a list of ways you can be loving to yourself.

And don’t forget to be loving to strangers around you – it is easy to show love to people we already know and trust in our lives, but there is something very powerful about being loving to someone you don’t even know.  So practice random acts of kindness and when you show your love, you will find that you feel loved and happy too.