Let’s be honest. At some point in your life — probably around 2 am after your third scroll through someone else’s highlight reel on Instagram — you’ve stared at the ceiling and thought, ‘What is actually the point?’
The philosophers had a go. Aristotle said it was about living virtuously. Camus said life is absurd, but we should imagine Sisyphus happy (which, respectfully, sounds like something someone says when they’ve never had to deal with a Monday morning commute). The internet says it’s 42. And your nan says it’s “making sure you eat before you leave the house”.
Turns out, Nan might be closest.
The Big Lie They Sold Us
We grew up being told that the meaning of life was out there somewhere. A destination. A mountain to climb. A moment where everything clicks, and you think, “Yes. This. This is why I’m here.”
So we chased it. Degrees. Promotions. Relationships. The perfect body. The apartment with the exposed brick wall and the aesthetic coffee machine. The life that looks like it belongs on a mood board.
And what happened when we got some of those things?
We updated the goal. Moved the goalposts. Started a new Pinterest board.
Because here’s the dirty secret nobody tells you: the meaning of life isn’t a destination. It’s not waiting for you at the end of a five-year plan. It’s not in the LinkedIn post about your promotion or the travel photo from Santorini.
It’s in the Tuesday afternoons. The boring bits. The bits you’d fast-forward if you could.
What Actually Seems to Matter (Based on Absolutely No Scientific Credentials)
After years of thinking about this – and by “thinking about this” I mean spiralling, Googling, reading half a self-help book, and talking to people who actually seem to have figured something out – here’s what keeps coming up:
Connection. Not followers. Not network. Actual people who know your nonsense and like you anyway. The ones you can ring at an inconvenient hour, and they pick up. Even if it’s just one person, that counts.
Something bigger than yourself. Whether that’s your faith, your community, a cause, your kids, your students, or a project you believe in—humans don’t do well when everything is about me, me, me. We’re wired for contribution. We feel most alive when we’re useful to something beyond our own comfort.
The present moment. (I know. I know. Bear with me.) We spend roughly 80% of our mental energy either replaying the past or worrying about the future. The actual moment we’re living in gets maybe a sliver. And yet, the moments that end up meaning the most – a proper belly laugh, a sunset, and a conversation that goes somewhere real – all happen here, not in your head.
Struggle that means something. Not suffering for suffering’s sake. But the kind of challenge that makes you grow is the hard job, the difficult conversation, and the thing you nearly gave up on and didn’t. Comfort is overrated. Nobody ever looked back on the easy years and thought those were the ones that made me.
The Meaning of Life Is Embarrassingly Simple
Nobody wants to hear this, but the meaning of life is almost certainly this: be present, be useful, love people well, and try not to waste too much of it being someone you’re not.
That’s it.
No grand revelation. No cosmic certificate in the post. No moment where the clouds part and a voiceover says, “Well done, you’ve unlocked the point of existence.”
Just a slow, imperfect, sometimes hilarious, occasionally gut-wrenching process of turning up for your life, the actual one, not the edited version, and finding that enough of it, when you’re paying attention, is genuinely good.
So What Do You Do With That?
You probably came here hoping I’d tell you something more profound. A formula. A framework. A five-step system.
I don’t have one. But I do have this:
Stop waiting for your life to start. It already did. It’s happening right now, while you read this, probably with a cold cup of tea next to you and seventeen tabs open.
The meaning isn’t something you find. It’s something you make out of the ordinary materials of your ordinary life, with the people who happen to be in it, doing the things that feel worth doing.
And if you can manage to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing along the way? Even better.
That, I think, is about as close to the answer as any of us are going to get.
Now go drink your tea. It’s gone cold.
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