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  <title>The Meaning of Life. - Alexandr Poltavsky, software developer</title>

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      Alexandr Poltavsky <br/>
      Software Developer <br/>
      Location: Russia, Moscow <br/>
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<h2>The Meaning of Life.</h2>

<p>The ultimate question of our existence. There is even a
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life">Wikipedia article</a>. Sure you have your own idea
  about that. Here is mine: <strong>happiness</strong>. What is happiness? It is a state when all of our demands
  are satisfied. When a woman or a man is happy, they don't need anything, they enjoy the world,
  they love everyone. And yes, it is very emotional by nature. But that is exactly why we ask
  that question (about meaning of life) in the first place. Emotions are so central to our living,
  it's frightening!</p>

<p>If we do not succeed in obtaining happiness, whether it's a career or family, we fail, we
  feel that our life was nothing, empty. What will make you happy?</p>

<h3>On Motivation</h3>

<p>The motivation is the source of all of our actions in life. A lot of people don't experience
  any problem with that, there is always something to do: solve problems, get kids to school, etc.
  But others are not content with that, they need a bigger goal in life.</p>

<p>There are two primary reasons, in my humble opinion, for people to excel (not just do work):
  emotions and conscious reasoning. To the class of emotional motivation I refer all of ambition,
  passion, any sort of satisfaction, and also greed and vanity. On the other hand a conscious
  decision to achieve something is much more difficult.</p>

<p>When a person is passionate you don't need any specific incentive to act. This person just blindly
  follows her heart and could achieve great results. Especially this zeal is present in young men.
  A young man in his 20s is in a "build my house" mode, so he's also driven by emotions. </p>

<p>But emotions don't last. Almost never. Programmers know really well this situation: we often come
  to computer programming being ecstatic for the endless possibilities programming opens for us. But
  as the time goes, we get less enthusiastic and more experienced. It becomes clear, that creating
  something valuable requires the work of a large number of people, takes a lot of time, hard and
  unexciting work.</p>

<p>If you are such a person that you don't have an emotional stimulus, then almost certainly you are
  going to have trouble with being successful. Ask yourself the following in that case:</p>

<ul>
<li>What would you do if you had 1000 years of life?</li>
<li>What would you do if you were not lazy?</li>
<li>If your life were a 24-hour session in the Minecraft, what would you do?</li>
<li>What would you do if you were rich?</li>
<li>What do you want from this World?</li>
</ul>

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<blockquote>
  <p>What will make you to be a happy person?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you've went through all of the above and still struggling with finding a reason to live, then
  try hard to realize your purpose in this world. Family, kids, business? Why not. Another good
  thoughtful experiment is to mentally exclude some thing and see if that makes a difference.</p>

<p>Personally, I have given a lot time to thinking about the primary motives in life. For me money
  means not that much, I have no ambitions either. I love science, I am curious about physics and
  space, but all that wasn't enough to answer the question of why I should do my best in life and
  work. </p>

<p>I also realized that what drives most of us is the pursuit of power. It is very much like an
  RPG game where players do their best to earn levels, that in turn empower players to do
  greater things. The same is in our daily life: we learn and work hard to gain additional
  abilities that will increase our power over this world. That power makes our life easier and
  happier. One could notice that is a very rational behaviour. It allows us to get a better place
  in a society hierarchy.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The worst thing you can do is procrastinate.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Actually, without people creating things, the life on Earth would be just surviving and fucking.
  So we need people creating stuff, making gadgets, getting into space to make the life of a
  human more enjoyable and fulfilled.</p>

<p>Also such thing as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work%E2%80%93life_balance" title="Work-Life Balance">work-life balance</a> is not an empty phrase. As I said above we are very
  rational and we never work just for the sake of work (unless you are emotionally driven, as I
  said above, like ambitions or passion). We know that doing our best is going to bring some
  benefits in the future. Therefore it's important to find harmony between working and enjoing
  the results of your work.</p>

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