# How do you try to lead a meaningful life

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-try-to-lead-a-meaningful-life/326312>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 15, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-try-to-lead-a-meaningful-life/326312 "2005-10-15T01:52:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![hlanelee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@hlanelee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlanelee)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-try-to-lead-a-meaningful-life/326312/21 "2005-10-16T09:05:25Z")

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I go into the world and try to treat people like I want to be treated, that’s all I can do.

Several years ago I was made an invalid in an automobile accident, for several years I did not have the mental capacity or the motor skills to exist as an individual. I have recovered fully and I am better than I was before the accident. The most striking thing I discovered when I returned to the world was that it went on without me as if I had never existed. I have had close friends die. I’ve buried my father and my wife and I think about them now and then, they exist now only in memory. When I die that memory will die also and it will be as if none of us ever existed.

I am able to look at the man in the mirror and say, “I do the right thing”, most of the time, and that’s how I lead a meaningful life. One day I will lay down and die and cease to exist and it will be as if I had never existed at all.

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