Unlike most personal growth books, The Real Meaning of Life is not written by an expert, nor is it the culmination of painstaking self-study or a sudden breakthrough. The book collects the insights of everyday people who responded to David Seaman’s simple query, “What is the meaning of life?” typed into an online forum on a laptop at Starbucks. To his surprise, a flood of responses came. Some suggested “boobies and beer,” but Seaman found that most were much more thoughtful — so much so that he created a website and now this book to collect the best of them. From thousands of respondents — including Buddhists, born-again Christians, atheists, waitresses, students, and recovering heart attack patients — come incredibly diverse wisdom that can be aphoristic (“Be grease, not glue”), philosophical (“There is no point to life, and that is exactly what makes it so special”), or whimsical (“Me, I'm going snowboarding”).

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The Real Meaning of Life

By David Seaman

New World Library

Introduction, 
What Is the Real Meaning of Life?, 
Why We Search — An Epilogue, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Author,

CHAPTER 1

What Is the Real Meaning of Life?

When I started attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, my parents made me do a work-study program. I got stuck in Sophie's cafeteria. An incredibly irritating guy there developed a crush on me. One day he really needed the evening off and begged me to take his shift, even though I only worked mornings because it was an hour's commute from my parents' house. Against my better judgment, I took his shift. That night, as I was helping to close, the manager sent in a guy to help me put chairs on the table so I could mop the floor.

Eight years later, this coming Thursday, in fact, we' re still married, with two kids. All because I took an extra shift at my shitty job.

— Barbara Kilpatrick

friday morning, waking up in the arms of someone you love, it's raining ... so you call in sick to work (giving yourself a three-day weekend), go back to sleep, and at noon ordering chinese, eating lunch in bed, and watching cheesy reruns all day while the world drags on without you.

— avk

The meaning of life is ...

Life.

Here's the longer version:

All life exists to re-create itself. Blast an island to dust with a volcano, and within a few years stuff is growing all over the place. Why? Because it must. Follow the chain up from RNA and you get replicating organisms. Why are we here? To reproduce. We eat so we're strong enough to have sex. All else is justification.

— Doug Finner

Life is short, and the end is always unknown ... and closer than we think. What on earth can you do with this time? What would make our time on earth worth the trouble?

Some people go to religion. We are predictive animals; we see into the future. And when we see our death, we can't accept that we will no longer exist. So religion fills that void — life after death, reward for all our rights, and punishment for all our wrongs.

Me? I just don't see it. The big guy in the sky seems far too implausible.

How do I go on? How do I continue to respect and honor my friends, live a good life, and try to improve myself? Why? What is the point, when it will all be soon forgotten?

I don't know.

What I do is I learn. I learn how to make things. Creation by my hands. Computer software, jewelry, robots, balloon animals, the written word, humor, compassion. I create everything I can, as often as I can, without interruption.

A better answer would be that to live is to love, and to love is to bring more light into the world. If we are to suffer this brief interlude, we might as well do all that we can to make the burden light for ourselves and for those around us.

And who knows? Maybe there is more to it than what we can see with our body's eyes. We can only hope.

— Edwin

I've been to the top of the pile, sank to the deepest depths, and seen every point in between. What keeps me hanging on? Morbid curiosity about what will come next. Life is an experience, and there's always something more, good or bad. The trick is learning to take both with equal reverence....

— E. James Jacobson

Having just survived my fourth heart attack, eleven months of unemployment, and a divorce not of my own making, all within the last year, I think that life means the following:

Love those who mean the most. Every life you touch will touch you back. Treasure every sunrise, every raindrop that hits your nose, every slobber of your dog, the feeling of sand between your toes. Be moved by the tears of a child, and try to fix the cause. Be grease, not glue. Breathe deep, exhale slowly, and never miss a chance to help another while on your journey here.

— Don Stephens

Beer, ribs, professional sports, and Miles Davis.

— Mike Barber

Waking up early one morning in a hotel room. Walking down the hall, through some doors, down more steps. Then realizing that you can run away right now and never be found again. Feeling truly free.

Wandering around London. Always having a general idea of where you are, but at the same time being kind of lost. Lost in a sea of people you don't know.

— Adam E. Heller

Humans generally seem to be goal-oriented creatures. I really hate it when people write cover letters for their r�sum�s saying they are "goal oriented." It's completely pointless to say that, because everyone is goal oriented. It's just that some people have very different goals. I have a friend whose goal is to get married before she leaves her childbearing years. I have another whose goal is to be filthy stinking rich, and yet another friend whose only goal is to make it to the next day. I think the third friend is the most realistic and perhaps the sanest, though perhaps a little lazy. It's true that in life there are be-ers and doers, but the be-ers have it right, in my humble opinion, because spending all your life running to get to the same place everyone's going anyway too often causes you to miss out on all the really nice things the world has to offer. All the hard work you do might bring you great wealth, which will allow you to buy all kinds of stuff, but does that "stuff" really add to your life? One might guess the guy sitting in a $3,000 massage chair watching a 50-inch plasma-screen TV has a better life than a sugarcane farmer who sleeps in a shack where the only entertainment is the sound of crickets chirping at night. But how many of these so-called comfortable people are actually happy? I would guess that those farmers are often experiencing life on a level the man in the massage chair can only dream about.

— E. J. Sepp

Roughly 10 percent of life is spent trying to shirk death. The rest of life is probably spent waiting in line at the supermarket.

— Tishon Woolcock

If you see a big ring of fire ahead of you and it scares you half to death, jump through it! It is only our fears that veil our true identity. Conquer these and you'll find what's left of you is love, a love so brilliant that ten thousand suns would not be your equal. We are all searching for truth, we all want happiness. Learn to love yourself and these gifts will follow. Stop looking outward ... the answers lie within. And for God's sake, stop grazing in the fields of chaos and fear that the media is cultivating for you. Fear sells, and we're buyin'. You are more powerful than you know. Enjoy.

— Jack Dempsey Boyd

At the end of the day, it's not that complicated. We're here on this planet for a short time. Appreciate every moment. We have a sacred responsibility to appreciate the opportunity of this life and make the most of it. There is an integrity to pursuing your dreams that animates all other aspects of life. Aim to leave the world a little bit better than you found it, whether it is through something as small as standing up for kindness or as big as building a movement to bring about broad change — both take courage. Be the change you want to see in the world. This is harder than it sounds. It is still worth pursuing.

A lot in life urges us to give in to the arrogance of the moment — the assumption...

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