ANSWERS: 3
  • This Q seems redundant to other's previously asked. What you are searching for is somekind of meaning to your existance. Nobody knows you better than you, and nobody knows what you want out of life, so to ask an AB member to sort out this dilemma for you is as impossible as it would be unfair, because we are busy sorting out our own lives and searching for our own meaning. You are alone in your quest, as so are we. I refer you to wikipedia.com, search; meaning of life. It has a lot of wisdom that may help you on your individual path. The question "what is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.- wikipedia; meaning of life. -A rating would be most generous.
  • The main ingredients in this process are awareness, effort, and time. Awareness: being aware of what you're actually doing with your time and life, and of who you already think you are. I don't mean the casual sort of answers we give at a party when someone asks "so what do you do?", I mean really paying very close attention to your actual behavior and thoughts, noticing how you spend your time, what sort of thoughts occur repetitively, etc. Its actually difficult, because we're not generally interested in self-awareness or observation. What we really want is to bask in our unending personal glory while others shower us with rose petals (or some variation of self-centered fantasies). I find that meditation is irreplaceable for this kind of awareness practice. Effort: because sorting out these questions is hard, the tendency to give up early rules the roost. Only someone who refuses to quit during the boring, difficult, or painful portions will succeed. Be aware that not very many people ever answer these questions satisfactorily (which is part of why the world seems to be such a mess, btw). Time: figure on a minimum of several years of this kind of effort. Read books on the topic (I recommend Zen books, of course, but you should listen to anyone who has a view about the subject). The pessimists will tell you to allow 20 years for this, though I do think many people seem to be making progress quickly these days. The bottom line is that nobody really takes these questions seriously until they've run out of other options: as long as you're content with pursuing ego-needs like comfort, success, and romance, or as long as you can just sign on for one of the pre-canned sources of "personal meaning" (e.g. popular religions) and be satisfied with that, there won't be any reason to undertake a spiritual quest like this. You have to decide for yourself whether its worth the effort, nobody can give that to you.
  • Thanks for your answers, but Answerbag seems to have altered the category on my question changing the whole meaning of it. I had originally put it under Job Hunting. I wanted ideas on how to figure out what job I was best suited for. Again, thanks anyway.

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