Finding the Value in Life

On a recent discussion with one of my friends, we re-visited the age old discussion of the meaning of life. I've come to realize that "meaning of life" depends on how you define value, which is different for everyone. It is useless to discover a universal answer to the meaning of life, as different people value different things. To someone who values their belief in a divine being, their answer to the meaning of life may be to live life in service of their deity. To greedy hedonist, their meaning of life may be to get the maximum amount of enjoyment out of life no matter what the cost is to others. However, once I have come to realize that the meaning of life depends on your own values, a basic answer can be proposed to the question of what the meaning of life is. The answer is as follows: to maximize the realized value of your life, where the value is a personal definition.

Thus, the key to finding meaning in life is to finding the value that life holds for you personally. What do you want to contribute to the world in your time here? What do you want to get out of it? Perhaps one day we will be able to define what "value" truly means, but for now, all we can do is guess. Although using a standard societal definition of value is perfectly acceptable, as let's face it, in most cases the masses are correct. However, if you want to get the most out of life for yourself, you must think hard about what yours values are and work at maximizing them over your lifetime. This is due to the fact that although popular belief does work for the general case, it is rarely the best case for any individual as all individuals are different. Since people are social animals, thinking in a way that does not agree with their family, friends, and society is very difficult and painful, but for a unique and extraordinarily satisfying life, I believe that this is a requirement. In most complex systems, one must move away from the local extrema to find a global extrema.

But what if you are like me? I can't seem to grasp any true value in life, since if there is no afterlife, everything will become nullified in the future anyway. As time goes to infinity, the chances of survival for the human race, or any race for that matter, goes to zero, and any traces of your existence will be meaningless, if not certainly erased. Of course, if there is an eternal afterlife, this would solve the problem, but as of now I still have not fully convinced myself that it exists, although I certainly hope that it does.

For now, while I am still trying to find exactly what it is that I value in life, I figure that instead of wasting my time, I might as well help others achieve theirs. To me, it seems that if everyone works toward maximizing the total "realized value" of life summed across everyone in the world, the world would be a better place as people would have on average, realized more of their dreams and passions. Very rarely will your own "realized value" have an inverse relationship to the total "realized value," and if for some reason yours is, perhaps it is time to step back and consider why your goal in life involves stifling the dreams of others.

So, for now, while I am still finding my value in life, I have decided the best thing I can do, for both myself and others, is to help others who already know what their values are to achieve them. Along the way, perhaps I can learn about different viewpoints which might end up helping me find my value in life after all.