Carpe Diem

"Does my life mean anything?". For pretty much all people it is the most complicated yes/no question we can be asked, and many of us simply do not have the time to ask it of ourselves. In the modern world everything moves so quickly that, in the immortal words of Ferris Bueller "... if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". When I have to evaluate whether or not my life has value, I immediately think of my close friendships. That is my answer to this question because if I were to find that my friendships were more fragile than I realized, it could mean that I am not making the right decisions where it counts. If I cannot make the right decisions now when it matters, it is likely my life will not have any real impact. 

The reason it is so difficult to answer this question is because to do so we have to be able to accurately evaluate ourselves. This is not something us humans are good at. To give an example why, when I write an essay I might proofread it four times and think it is the next great work of American literature; however, my friend could read it once and tell me I accidentally wrote 'the' three times in a row during the introduction. Unfortunately for us, while it is extremely difficult to be straight with ourselves it is one of the most important tasks to accomplish. If we want to be able to find our way through the entropy that is life we need to be able to come to terms with where we stand in it all.

Ever since people began philosophizing, we have contemplated why we exist and what our purpose is as human beings. It is thought that the awareness of our own consciousness is unique to humanity, which makes it a great gift. From my relatively brief experience in existence, my conclusion is that we are here to love and to be loved. Yes, it is true that as biological creatures our goal is to procreate and maintain our species. But I believe there is more than just being born, reproducing, and dying. Love, while fickle, is incredibly powerful. It can bring people together in ways that no other emotion can. In a larger context, it might not matter what we do or what connections we make on our little blue marble out somewhere in an infinite universe. My counter to this argument is that it is so statistically unlikely that we exist it would be irresponsible to throw it away with hate or shallow behavior.

Of all the things I want to do by the time my life ends, experiencing failure is a top priority. This is not to say I have never failed before, it is something I have a plethora of experience with. I simply wish to continue to face some type of failure throughout the rest of my life. I desire failure because if I am succeeding at everything I do, then I am not challenging myself enough. A life without challenge is a life not well lived. This is because failure is how I learn best. For the same reason we study history in school, I study my past errors to learn how to prevent them from repeating. Failure is something that serves not just me though. Can anybody imagine a world where nobody is equipped to deal with failure? It would be total chaos, and nothing would ever get done. Nobody would ever stay in school to learn anything and the world as we know it would fall apart. Because my goal as a human is to always be improving myself, I hope to (initially) fail at what I try going forward so that I can be a more well adjusted and prepared member of society.

Being a person is undoubtedly complicated, and one of the most confusing aspects of the human experience is love. Nobody can really explain it, nobody can predict it, and nobody can control it. It is simultaneously one of the most joyful and one of the most terrifying times in any person's life. So falling in love is on the list of things I am hoping to experience before I die. I cannot imagine anything that better exemplifies the contradictions of the human experience. It contains hope and despair, happiness and pain, all wrapped up into one single concept. It is also a time to develop and find what you are looking for in the world. When you discover what qualities you are attracted to and what qualities deter you it helps define you as a person. When you know who you are as a person, your 'eulogy virtues' are more likely to show themselves because you are comfortable with them. The human race needs love because at one point or another we all go through it, and the mutual understanding of what it can do to you can build empathy. After we are all gone empathy will still be the key to improving our species, and that is why we need to experience love.

Having a strong support system is critical to feeling safe and branching out, but prior to my expiration date I hope to have the opportunity to live independently. A benefit to living without a direct safety net is that it is a great test of problem solving. It is something I feel I need in my life because I have often wondered if I am as self-reliant as I think I am, or if I am falling into the deadly trap that is overconfidence. I am not suggesting cutting myself off from all my family and friends and living under a pseudonym for several years. However, being able to live in a new environment with new people would help me tremendously. When I am having scheduling issues or problems with work or school it is better for me to be able to break down the problem and solve it myself. If I am not near an easy way out it is more likely that I will be able to get myself to solve my own problem instead of over involving others. Humanity would benefit from the concept of living independently because it can develop self reliance in anybody if they are willing to stick with it. A world with more problem solvers is a more productive one, and we can get a chance to improve problem solving by trying to manage life in an unfamiliar place.

It is often said that you have two deaths: the first when your body dies, and the second when nobody can remember who you were. While I understand the first death is inevitable, I would hope to survive in memory as a reliable friend to those close to me. This is because a person who can be trusted is somebody who is honest enough with themselves to be honest with the rest of the world. There is no metric to define how you know when you can trust somebody, it is a qualitative measurement. But it does not take a detailed numerical analysis to understand that people who are less comfortable with themselves are more likely to sell out your secrets to be accepted by people they want to impress. Because people can usually tell who has that quality, it is meaningful to me when I am trusted as a close confidant. When I am gone I want my friends to remember me as somebody who respected the trust they gave me because it means they saw me as a self-confident person. Self-confident people do not care what others think of them, and people who do not care what others think of them can make a real difference. Humanity could use reliable friends because when you have people you can trust it takes a tremendous burden off you to shoulder the weight of your problems. A world filled with positive mental health is a world I want to see, and is a world we can contribute to by getting our individual answers to "What is my life's purpose?".