Men have always been asking what the goal of life is. Some find the answer in religion, some get caught in career, some lose direction and continue living aimlessly. What is the goal of life?
The first step in answering a question is understanding the question itself. This means knowing the characteristics of the problem involved in the question. In this way, we recognize "the weak points" of the problem, are able to attack the problem and to answer the question.
Let's see our question: "What is the goal of life?"
We can rephrase it like this: "What is life for?" or "What was life
created for?"
Thus, to be able to find the goal of life, we must first know how life started
or "the creation of life". Only then can we estimate the reason and the purpose of
life. So far, men don't completely understand how life was formed at the first
place. All we know is how life is continued from one generation to another generation.
With this limited knowledge, we can only answer as far as what the goal of a single living individual is. Science says the a child is born to ensure that there will be a new generation to continue the existence of human. This does sound reasonable, although it is too simplistic for human. After all, we - as human beings - think. We are not satisfied with only eating, sleeping, and continuing living. We want more.
This is the reason why we go to school and go to work. We want to do something other than surviving and reproducing. We started to "make up" things now known as culture, tradition, knowledge, and civilization to "kill time".
It seems that the goal of life is making smaller goals to make life itself worthwhile. Don't you agree?
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"This assessment shows that when a man has acquired an ideal and has
something to pursue, clear beliefs, and an objective to fight for, it
gives him a new life."
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Any follow-ups, comments or objections to my view?
Contact me: at comp dot nus dot edu dot sg with dennyisk before the at Last edited: Thursday, 29 July 2001 |
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