What is the meaning of life? Too many theologians, philosophers, and "experts" have already given lengthy and verbose answers before me so my answer will be simple and to the point. The purpose, the meaning of life is to seek knowledge, decipher truth, and then share that knowledge and truth with others.

We must develop a thirst for knowledge until the quest becomes as necessary as a drink of water. The good news for us is that we live in an information age where it's possible to learn new lessons in the time it takes your broadband to connect. Something that we should all understand is that schools and universities aren't the only storehouses of learning because books are able to teach us factual and even biased information, but people are the greatest sources of knowledge. We ourselves can analyze our past to learn from our mistakes, but we can also talk to parents, friends, coworkers, and especially elders to pick their brains of valuable knowledge that we can use in our own lives.

When we listen to what he said that she said about what they said how is it possible for us to get the full extent of the truth? Now many of us feel that there are various shades of gray when it comes to the "truth", but I dispute that theory. There is either truth or lie, black or white. We either speak truth or we speak words that we constantly have to reiterate in our minds so that we don't confuse our own falsehoods. We must spend time deciphering the truth from lies so that we are not fooled by someone else's interpretation of the truth for our own benefit of knowing the truth and for the benefit of others when we share what we've learned.

2+2 = ? For those that know the answer, how did you learn it? First, someone shared the answer with you and then showed you how to arrive at the answer yourself. This could be considered a different kind of "circle of life". We learn, then we discern the truth in what we've learned, and finally, we share our new knowledge with others to continue the cycle. Some choose to be greedy with their knowledge in hopes of keeping it for themselves, but without the sharing of knowledge, we repeat the same mistakes over and over, and it's impossible for us to grow individually or collectively without a sharing of knowledge.

There you have it, my answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?". I think about the hard lessons I've had to learn and the soul searching I've done to arrive at my answer, and I hope my answer can help smooth the road for someone else. George Bernard Shaw said, "Youth is wasted on the young." and when I think on my impetuosity, stubbornness, and naiveness, I realize that even if I knew then what I know now, I would still have lacked the wisdom and maturity to put my knowledge to use. The fact is that now I do and I am thankful for that. Finally, on the topic of usage, "knowledge is power" is a lie because "knowledge does not equal power without the courage to use it." It is my hope that after reading this, you pass your knowledge on and then keep learning.