I’ve really thought about life and just why we are forced to live through such often unpleasant situations.  What is the point in living?  What do we get out of it?  I, being the cynical and fatalistic person that I am, have boiled it down to a basic idea:

Hardly anything really matters, because you will die sooner or later and you will leave everything behind.  A great deal  of life should be used to find those things that matter.

The things that really matter to me are the things that you can “take with you” when you die.  I believe that although a person’s body will die, his mind and soul will last forever.  So to me, material things are not very important. Sure, I like having stuff, but I know that it is only temporary and I can already see my possessions fading away.  Things that I learn are stored in my mind, which is intangible.  I go through experiences that affect my emotions, which are a part of my soul. It is these things that are important to me.

I learn through experiences.  My life has been a series of trials and hardships, but I have learned from them all and have become a stronger person. No surgery can remove those experiences from me.

I know that if I say “Hello” to someone, I will some day have to say “Good-bye.”  Relationships are very important to me and they are the only reason I desire to live.  Although relationships cannot last forever, there is something transferred between the people in that relationship. A piece of yourself is given and a piece of someone else is gained.  I believe that everyone has been placed on earth so that someone else may learn something from them and be enriched because of it.

My relationship with God is very important. He put me here for a purpose and it is my duty to fulfill what He has planned for me.  And because God’s love for me is unwavering and unconditional, there will always be someone there for me.  Because I cannot get love from my parents and I do not always get love from my friends, my relationship with God serves as the final defense to keep me alive.  I have been through enough emotional hell to make me suicidal at times.

In the not too distant past,  my relationship with God was not very good, so that final barrier was no longer there.  Fortunately, my friends were there before it was too late.  My relationships with my friends and with God saved my life, therefore I live for relationships.

I believe that it is these experiences and relationships that change me, making me the person who I am.  There is no man-made product that can affect me like that.  Changes in me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually help move me closer to what will be my ideal self.

I would like to close this essay with a quote by Piers Anthony, a famous novelist:

“I think my most significant personal revelation is that life changes hour by hour and minute by minute, like the constant flowing of a river. I am not quite the same person today that I was yesterday; small aspects of me have changed, physically and mentally. I will change a little more by tomorrow, and a great deal more in the course of future years.

“To try to hang on to one particular section of life, such as the one I am experiencing at this moment, is foolish; it can’t be done, and if it could be done, it would not be worthwhile. Change is much of the essence of life. Death is the final change. We can not hold on even to a day; how, then, can we capture life itself? Perhaps our whole awareness of individuality, of self, is an illusion. If so, it is better not to grasp unduly at that illusion, but rather to live out our lives in such a manner that when we must at last lay them down, we will not be ashamed. Life has meaning only if we live for meaning.”