The Meaning of Life is So Simple: It’s to Live!

I was recently watching a Joseph Campbell DVD called The Power of Myth, and something Joseph Campbell said really got through to me.  For the past 30 years, I've spent so much time and energy pondering, even struggling with, what the MEANING OF LIFE is.  And it's simply to EXPERIENCE the rapture of this amazing life of ours.  That's it.  I don't need to worry about leaving my mark, bettering the world, how I should be of service, my spiritual evolution, the afterlife and the in-between lives, mankind's place in the vast cosmos or our future, what we can learn from history, etc.  I need to simply experience which really means FEEL.  The joy, the pain, the sorrow, the pleasure, the hilarious, the morose, the fun, the excitement, the scary the camaraderie, the connection with others, the love.  Focus on THIS lifetime, on THIS year, on THIS week, on THIS Day, and the rest will take care of itself.  Being happy and present is the best thing I can do for the planet and mankind.  I had read this exact thing in a Dali Lama book many years ago, but I didn't really believe it then.  The whole point of his book was that being happy was the purpose of life, and that happy people are compassionate and their positivity radiates outwards to organically change the world in a positive way.  It was too simplistic for me plus I didn't really know how to be happy at the time.  Beyond just the individual reasons for simply experiencing the rapture of life, the world needs that more than it needs another brooding philosopher-artist.