Thwin Htut Aung

What Life Means to Me

There are a variety of definitions for the meaning of life. Different people perceive life in
different ways depending upon their experiences. Life is extremely delightful for the people who
are wealthy or prosperous since birth whereas those who are poor or destitute since birth have to
struggle just to stay alive and therefore doubt the existence of happiness in life. Undoubtedly, we
can work hard and earn money to sustain a good life. Nevertheless, I certainly believe that there
is much more about what defines life beyond wealth.

Life is something we cannot always control and we have to continually adapt to changes and
difficulties in order to maintain real happiness in life. No matter how rich we are or what we
have, we have to admit that what happens in our lives is simply uncontrollable at times. The
most comprehensible example at this moment is the Coronavirus pandemic. Our everyday lives
have been severely affected by this pandemic. Most of our businesses and schools had to be
closed for several months. Furthermore, we lost the chance to go out and freely have fun with
our loved ones. This experience has significantly changed my attitude toward the meaning of
life. Since I have been raised in a moderately wealthy family and I had few difficulties as a child,
I used to think that we can do anything at any time provided we have money and effort. Now I
have perceived the truth that we sometimes cannot influence life regardless of what we are. We
have to choose what we need to do over what we want to in some situations.

In addition, I have further learned about the randomness and lack of controllability of life owing
to what happened to our country just at the moment the pandemic was about to be under control.
The military of our country, Myanmar, has unlawfully overthrown our democratic government
and seized the power in an attempt to restore their oppressive regime. The nationwide peaceful
activism and protests against this coup are being brutally repressed by the military and now our
country is amid a humanitarian crisis. Our education journey has been delayed once again and
our daily lives are among soldiers who shoot, beat and intimidate civilians. To be honest, I
cannot do much as an individual to alter the situation. This experience has also enlightened me
about what life means. I have realized that life is not always fair and sometimes we may
encounter injustice for some time. Now I know that life is not equal to happiness and justice as I
believed as a child. It is equal to complete unpredictability and the combinations of delight and
misery, justice and injustice, and ebullience and depression.

I always try to be optimistic about what I cannot control and confident in what I do so as to
maintain a good and happy life. I try to handle every challenge with my best effort and
perseverance. I also spend a lot of time doing things which make me happy like my hobbies.
There are a large number of people around the world whose lives are in poverty, injustice or
sorrow. I can now empathize with them well due to my experience. We need to revitalize each
other should we want the world to be a happy place for humanity. Even if we are not world
leaders, there are many things each of us can do to make our lives better. For instance, we can
donate money to people in need or the charities that are helping them. Moreover, we could do
voluntary work with whatever skills we have. Doctors can provide poor people with free health
care and teachers can offer free education. We get pleasure and good experience by promoting
others’ welfare. On the whole, the things of utmost importance for humanity are love, kindness
and forgiveness. If we are kind, helpful and sympathetic toward each other, there is no struggle
we cannot overcome and no challenge we cannot face. We also need to understand and forgive
each other as much as we can and support each other to fix mistakes so that our world is full of
peace and happiness.