The Meaning Of Life

There’s this old story - allegedly true - that takes place in 1670s London on the construction site of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Christopher Wren, the most renowned architect in the world, stops by to witness his design come to life. Three bricklayers work on the scaffolding, and he asks each of them: “What are you doing?”

The first bricklayer says: “I’m laying bricks for this wall.”

The second bricklayer says: “I’m laying bricks to feed my family.”

The third bricklayer says: “I’m building a cathedral to The Lord.”

Heavy. All three men are functionally doing the same thing - placing a brick onto the mortar bed and then moving on to the next one - but they each view their work differently. The second and third bricklayer presumably feel much better about bricklaying because their perspective is more purposeful. They understand the significance of their work, and find meaning in it.

Purpose is important, it is the foundation of resilience, motivation, and fulfillment. Why would one work a thankless, back-breaking job for hours upon hours, days upon days? Why would one work at all? Because working feeds me. Or working feeds my family. Or working means this church stands beautifully in the center of my city, inspiring all who view it for centuries. 

I saw an Instagram reel of this influencer girl standing in a giant barnhouse, tricked out into a barnhome. Wearing white linens and canvas pants, she pleasantly kneaded dough, throwing it high in the air and spinning it beneath her towering wooden ceilings. Soft music filled the lofty space, and she took delight in dancing and cooking among the heavenly ambience. 

The caption was the following: “When your husband loves working so you can stay home and cook all day.” The top comment was the following: 

“He doesn’t love working, he loves you.”

Discovering your purpose is difficult, obviously. If it were easy, everyone would be well on their way to greatly impacting the world. In our present-day happiness-focused, dopamine-driven TikTok era, we likely ask ourselves what makes me happy? more often than we wonder about our purpose. Somewhere in the back of our mind, the question may quietly and periodically nag, but like every other suggestion from our conscience, we can ignore it. We can more easily distract ourselves from our purpose than at any other time in history.

Not sure what you should be doing with your life? That’s fine. Someone on the Internet will tell you it’s empowering to do whatever you want. Some mind-numbing dating podcast in your headphones will drown out your thoughts, or you can doom scroll until you forget that you ever had any thoughts at all. 

For good reason, Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For? has 800,000,000 Spotify streams and won 2023’s Best Original Song at one of those made-up award shows. Despite using only 57 unique words, the song's powerful and thought-provoking lyrics compel the listener into a state of introspective longing for more.

Though it might be easier to avoid such questions and their resulting difficulty and frustration, you should ask yourself the following:

What was I made for? What is my purpose? 

Which are both variants of the age-old question: 

What is the meaning of life? 

I know the answer. Let me put you on. 

I didn’t figure it out myself, Viktor Frankl did, and he outlines it beautifully in his book Man’s Search For Meaning. To him: “the meaning of life is to give life meaning.” 

Solved that one, huh? Sounds simple enough. Thanks for reading! That’s a mighty fine answer, except of course when you ask yourself what does that mean?

It is your responsibility to assign meaning to your own life, based on the circumstances that life itself has placed you in. The meaning of life:

There is no universal, comprehensive meaning to life. There are only individual meanings to each individual life, based on their task at hand. It’s like asking a football coach what the best play is. Unless it’s Jon Gruden doing his bit on Spider 2 Y Banana, you’re not getting an answer. He’s laughing at you for asking such a ridiculous question, and peppering you with a number of questions of his own. Who are my players? What’s the score? How much time is left? Who are we playing? What down is it? How many yards to go? Is it raining? How hard? 

There is no universal best play, no universal best chess move, no best note in music. Each of these is determined by their surrounding circumstances.

If your son falls into a frozen lake, your purpose is to save him. If your wife’s water breaks, your purpose is to get her to the hospital as quick as you can. You exist in both of these moments solely for the successful execution and completion of that task.

Asking yourself what is the meaning of life? and waiting around for something dramatic to happen so you can rise to the occasion will leave you uselessly wandering. What you should be asking is, what should be the meaning of my life?

I don’t know what the meaning of your life should be, and I’m still discovering what mine is as well, and will continue to do so as it changes. I do, however, believe that our consciences are smarter than us, and I’d advise looking inward to ask these questions:

1. Does this feel like where I’m supposed to be?

2. Do I currently find meaning completing my everyday tasks?

3. Could I be doing more?

The husband of the girl in the Instagram video - maybe he does, in fact, love his job and love working. But the comment-leaving observer has a point - it’s more likely that he loves his purpose. His purpose in going to work is making enough money to maximize her joy, giving her the freedom to stay home each day to make wholesome dancing videos in the kitchen.

Perhaps there is a bricklayer who, more than anything, loves laying bricks, but cannot reconcile that he’s building a prison, something he doesn’t believe in. Even though he followed his passion of bricklaying, not finding purpose or meaning in it will leave him unfulfilled.

How can you use your talents and interests to make the world better? What does the world need from you? What were you made for?

So, after all that - what is the meaning of life? That’s for you to figure out. Find your purpose and fulfill your duties.