The Meaning of Life

These days, I often ask myself: What is the meaning of life?

One night, I lay in bed and thought about the past decade. I was shocked by how fast time flies. It has been nearly ten years since I graduated from university. I am now in my early thirties. I have been reading, learning, and working for ten years. I often feel anxious about how little I know and how little I have achieved. But when I think about it deeply, I have to admit that I am not even sure why I should weigh all of these things so heavily.

I also remembered one thing from my university years. Someone once asked me, "What do you like to do in your daily life?" I told him, "I like doing things that can help others. If I do something good for other people, I feel happy." He may not have understood it at the time, but I was serious. One of the happiest things I did in university was teaching a younger student the basics of programming and electronics. I still remember how happy I was when I saw him successfully build a small vehicle and write a simple program to control it. He felt the joy I had felt a year before, and I felt another layer of joy myself.

After graduating from university, I came to Beijing and met many new friends and colleagues. I started to realize how little I knew and how small I was. Helping others? Was I kidding myself? Who needed my help? I really had these thoughts. But deep in my heart, I still believed that I could help others, and that I should.

During the past five years, I put most of my effort into work. At first, I felt happy about it. I had the chance to use my knowledge to solve real-world problems. When I fixed a bug, helped colleagues solve problems, or implemented features that customers needed, I felt happy. As time went by, people started talking more about money, houses, and cars. I am not interested in those things. They should be secondary; they would come naturally if I could do something genuinely useful for others. Then one day, I realized I was working only for money, and I felt lost.

I have fewer demands in life. The money I have now is enough for me to live on, and I could do nothing for a while and still survive. But as a person living in modern society, I have responsibilities. I cannot ignore practical concerns. I hope I can do meaningful things and still earn enough at the same time. So I quit my job and started looking for new opportunities.

Today, I thought about the same question again: What is the meaning of life? Eight billion people live on this planet, and everyone is busy with something for themselves, for their families, or for other goals. What is the meaning of everything they do? Sometimes I zoom out and place myself in the universe. From that broad perspective, I think about Earth, time, and space. I wonder what is outside the universe, why life exists, and why time and space exist. At one point, I even felt that maybe all of these things should be NULL: no time, no space, nothing.

But I exist, you exist, time passes, and space is here. From the perspective of the universe, life may be meaningless, but from my own perspective, it has meaning. Right now, I think the meaning of life has three parts:

1. Experience. We come into this world with an incredibly small probability. Without even talking about changing the world, I should at least experience this world. That means doing what you love, seeing beautiful landscapes, and reading or watching masterpieces created by human beings and by nature. Whether I experience these things may mean nothing to the universe, but to me, it matters. I feel happy or sad through these experiences, and those feelings make up my life.

2. Create. I study and learn the facts of this world. If I can create something new, that is meaningful. It can be a piece of code, a book, or even an article that inspires others. In this chaotic world, it is easy to be distracted. I feel sad about the time I have wasted, and I hope I can protect my attention and create something, even if it is very small. Creating something new may help others, but the most important part is this: I have used nature's gift, my brain, to create.

3. Help Others. I always remember a saying by Will Smith: "If you're not making someone else's life better, then you're wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better." Helping others, helping them experience more, and helping them create something new: that is the most meaningful thing I can do in my life. No matter how small I am, I can always help someone.

This is my current answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" Experience, Create, and Help Others. Everything I have done and everything I will do is driven by these three parts. I will keep thinking about this question, but for now, this is the answer from my heart, without hesitation. What is your answer? Welcome to share it with me.