10 Reasons to Choose a Meaningful Life

Everything matters.

Avoid blaming others.

Take responsibility.

Tell the truth.

Sacrifice for the greater good.

Although those are some pretty tough ideas, they are all part of a meaningful life.

It pretty much includes all the stuff you know you should do. It’s choosing to listen to that annoying little voice in the back of your mind telling you: “Get your s@#! together Jimmy!”

The heavier the burden that you voluntarily carry, and the more you’re oriented towards the good, the more meaningful your life will be. The point is to feel like you’re devoting your life to something that’s beyond you, providing real value to the world.

Living this way isn’t easy and might not be very appealing at first. I mean, why would you want to spend less time partying, playing video games, eating burgers and getting high, and spend more time doing meaningful stuff?

Well, I’ll give you 10 reasons why.

If it’s so difficult, why should you choose one?

1. You’ll become a stronger person

“Pain makes me grow. Growing is what I want. Therefore, for me pain is pleasure.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

This one is pretty simple. Living a meaningful life is all about getting stuff done. Some of it’s going to be enjoyable, whereas a large part of it’s going to be boring or difficult. However, it is exactly those challenges that are necessary for you to grow as a person. When you start to visualise the difficulties in your life as stepping stones for your development, as Arnold viewed the tearing of muscle fibres to build his ginormous chest, you will have more incentive to push through the struggle.

2. It reduces suffering

We can look at all the suffering that goes on in our life in terms of crap:
There’s a crap pile that we have no control over. However, there’s a lot of extra crap that you can either get rid of or add to the pile. The only way to get rid of the crap is if you: accept that you’re responsible for it and get your hands a bit dirty. It’s hard to take responsibility for it but it’s the only way the crap becomes under your control, and therefore, reducible. Just like with everything, as you remove more and more crap, you get better at it. In turn, this prepares you for when life unforgivably decides to take a giant s@#$ on you, as you’ll have removed so much crap that it won’t be as big of a mess (pun intended).

3. You’ll be a happier person

We’ve all done things that were hard. It could’ve been finally getting the courage to ask Sally out on a date, working your a$$ off to finish that essay on a topic you despise, or building your own company to become the new-born Tai Lopez (slightly varying levels of difficulty here, but you get the point). Although we feel a sense of accomplishment and pride when we reach a goal, much of our positive emotions are deeply linked to progress towards a goal. [2] Living a meaningful life means that you have real goals and aspirations (which you get to choose). Regardless of whether you accomplish them or not, just the fact that you’re working towards them ultimately makes you a happier person.

4. Contributing to society

Having a meaningful life doesn’t only mean making your own life better (even though you should start there first). The point is to go beyond that, aiming to make the lives of your friends, family and even society as a whole better; to actually do something good for the world. Even just by sorting yourself out, you’ll inspire the people around you to follow your path.

5. You’ll probably make more $$$

This shouldn’t serve as the primary reason, but it’s definitely a great side benefit. Living a meaningful life means that you’re providing real value to others. You’ll be much more invested in what you’re working at, and your aim will be to genuinely help people, making you better at your job (unless you’re a drug lord or something… I’m assuming that you’re not a drug lord). And of course, as a reward for this real value you’ll receive something back, a.k.a more moolah!

6. Better relationships

Another added bonus is having REAL relationships with the people around you. You’ll spend time with people you actually care about, ones which you help grow and vice versa. You’ll be as honest as you can with each other, and although that’ll occasionally lead to conflict and uncomfortable situations, you’ll work those problems out to strengthen the relationship even more.

7. Your life will be more exciting

A meaningful life is not something that imprisons you. You do have restrictions, sure, but there’s a reason for them. You probably wouldn’t brush your teeth twice a day if you weren’t trying to prevent them from becoming rotten and black. You wouldn’t do all the boring things that are part of your routine if you had no reason to. Realistically, a meaningful life is going to have boring moments, and your motivation will fluctuate. There’s no way around that. However, there are so many exciting aspects about this lifestyle that will make you actually want to get out of your bed every morning: overcoming fears, doing things that are important, achieving goals you thought were impossible, speaking the truth, and so much more. The discipline you place upon yourself will free you to do the things that you truly love.

8. You’ll be more grateful for less

Watching a funny video on YouTube, playing your favourite video game, engaging in whatever hobbies you have are all part of your leisure time. We do them because they’re entertaining and make us feel good. They start to get a little less fun if it’s all that our lives consist of.
If you’re going to live meaningfully, you need to work. That does not mean “I’M NEVER GONNA HAVE FUN AGAIN!!!”, but just that you’re delaying your gratification. You’re actually just making those fun things even better. You’ll be grateful for the free time you have and look forward to it. Once you have it, you’ll feel like you genuinely deserve it for the hard work you’ve put in. Even though it’s a bit cringe; if you work hard, you play hard.

9. You’ll be the hero of your own movie

In movies, you know how there’s often that guy who’s life isn’t going so great at first. Then at some point they make a critical decision to take on some grand responsibility. It leads to something incredibly difficult and lots of challenges arise against them (otherwise the movie would be super boring). They often even risk their own lives for their purpose. We watch these movies, admiring these heroes, wishing to acquire the same strength and sense of meaning they possess. Pursue a meaningful life, and you too can become the “Hero Of Your Own Movie” [3].

(Sorry to disappoint you though, this does not mean you’ll start shooting spiderwebs from your hands or become a buff, 1000 lbs green monster).

10. Just look at the alternative

If you go to the other side of the spectrum, you’ll find a nihilistic life, one in which you see everything as being meaningless instead. In a constant state of chaos, your life won’t move in any direction because every path is going to appear just as useless as the next. You’ll gratify yourself with all the instant pleasures you can get your hands on, but the more you consume the faster your happiness will decline. You’ll become resentful about your life and the fact that existence is so pointless, leading to two possibilities:
1) you continue to waste your life
OR
2) you seek to DESTROY it as revenge…

So yeah, staying away from that is an alright idea!

To sum it all up…

Choosing a meaningful life and sticking to it is not easy. If it was easy, everyone would be living that way. Knowing why you’re pursuing it, reminding yourself of the unique benefits it brings, as well as the hell that awaits on the opposite side, might just be enough to keep you going.

If now you find yourself interested in learning how to REALISTICALLY work towards a more meaningful life, check out “Top Tips To Actually Make Your Life Meaningful”.

Nihilism: 9 Reasons it’s So Popular

Motivation isn’t Enough, You Need to Be Driven

Sources:

12 Rules for Life