(345 words) Every thinking person seeks meaning in his life. As a rule, it becomes a specific goal. This may be a vocation, care for the family, creativity or global transformation in society. In a word, such a defining goal must be global and serious. But it also happens that people live for personal enrichment or momentary pleasures, this is where they see their task. This is sad, because such an existence cannot be called a full-fledged life.
A similar example was described by Gogol in the prose poem Dead Souls. The main character lived only in order to get rich. All his activities were aimed at carrying out fraud with dead souls. He planned to pawn the no longer existing peasants and receive money on bail. Therefore, he wandered around the county towns in search of short-sighted landowners. Chichikov was not worried about art, not interested in science, not particularly attracted by the prospect of creating a family. His only weakness was money, and his ideal was a luxurious, idle life in veneration and contentment. We can say that he was not really interested in anything else. Can this be called life? No, this is just existence. Animals live with the same values and guidelines: to saturate, multiply and sleep. A person is capable of more, which means he must look for a different, more elevated goal.
In Ostrovsky’s play The Storm, another example is described. In the dark kingdom, we see not only a ray of light in the image of Katerina, but the light of knowledge in the person of the mechanic Kuligin. He is trying to dispel ignorance hanging over the city. Kalinov is far from the civilized world, hypocrisy reigns in it, house-building orders and stupidity. The hero is trying to teach people that lightning is electricity, and not the chariot of Elijah the prophet. Of course, one is not a warrior in the field, and it’s hard for Kuligin to re-educate Kabanikh and Wild, who listen only to Feklush and other wanderers. But nevertheless, he began the fight against degradation and stagnation, and this is a goal worthy of man, which has become the meaning of life for the mechanic.
Thus, a person needs to strive to make the world a better place: to bring love and care into it, enrich the culture, make a contribution to science, help people and inspire them to do great things. Even honestly doing their job is already a worthy cause that streamlines and makes the life of a particular person valuable. However, you can’t slide down to put greedy and vulgar goals at the forefront.
