If I’m asked “What is your greatest weakness?” in a job interview, I always answer with either, “I’m a huge perfectionist” or “I think way too much." The latter is something that I know I’m not alone in. Most of us are guilty of overthinking everything from what we said to that cute person at that party to whether or not we chose the right college major. Sometimes my thoughts go even deeper than how I acted in a social situation or if I’m on the right career path, and I find myself completely forgetting about all the superficial aspects of life. Instead, I get caught up in the meaning of existence. It’s almost silly; I know. But I start to wonder what my purpose is, what all of our purposes are, and what it truly means to be an individual human being.
Evidently, I think too much about the meaning of life. In my opinion, it seems like something all humans should be aware of, yet none of us truly are. I mean, shouldn’t we have the right to know why we were put into this world? It doesn’t seem like there will ever be a universal meaning of life since everyone holds different beliefs and values. For example, in Matthew 28:19-20 of the Bible, Jesus tells his followers to “Go and make disciples of all nations." Many Christians interpret this as the meaning of their lives (to spread Christianity), but of course this isn’t a universal truth.
Often times I wonder why I completely understand how the area under a curve is calculated, what happens to a chemical reaction when a stress is added to it, and how a skeletal muscle contracts, but I can’t grasp what seems like such a basic concept. I’m here to grow up, go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, take care of my kids, then take care of my parents. Right? Is this enough? Is there something more?
Okay, existential rant over. Maybe others have the same thoughts as I do, or maybe they don’t. It’s apparent that many of my peers don’t think the way I do, though. They wake up, go to class, plan fun things to do on the weekend, and don’t think much about why they’re doing any of that. I’m pretty darn jealous of these people. They seem so carefree. After all, they aren’t preoccupied by existential questions like I frequently am. I know there’s still a girl inside me who wants to spend a day laughing on a beach, sporting a blue tongue from her third blue raspberry slushie, all while thinking about absolutely nothing.
Slowly but surely, I’ve come to realize that the meaning of life to is come to terms with not knowing the meaning of life. We need to be okay with not knowing why exactly we were put on this earth. All that we can do is give our own lives meaning. This means finding our passions and hobbies and taking time out of our hectic days to do what we love. This means spending time and sharing ideas with the people we care about. This means going outside and enjoying all of the beauty that has been miraculously placed in our world. We don’t have to know why we are here or why anything is here. In this case, ignorance should be bliss.
