Living your life basically comes down to a choice of three options:
1. Live for yourself.
- Have as much fun as you can have. Live with the moment. Don't do the thing the others say you should be doing. Do whatever fuck you feel like doing. YOLO.
- For example: Have sex. Play music. Travel.
- Live hedonistically. As long as you do not hurt the others while doing it. Just don't. It's bad.
2. Live with your friends and family.
- Settle down. Embrace your close circle of family and friends. Have kids and raise them well.
- Lead your life in a romantic and peaceful way. That's why it's usually the most steadily happy one. You can't go wrong with this option.
- That's why most of people in the world choose it.
- Moreover, you cannot deny it's a good way. It's healthy for you, your family, and your friends. It's good for society as well (if everybody lived like that, it propably would be in a very good shape). It's good for prolonging the human race and our culture. Thus, propably that's why this way has been promoted since forever in almost every civilization and religion.
3. Live for the society and its' future.
- Make the world a better place. Try to improve it.
- Use the talent you have. If you have been gifted with it, you should be using it, right? Not wasting it.
- Avoid living just for yourself and your own happiness.
- Examples: Find a company. Serve as a volunteer in some NGO. Become a doctor. Engage in local/world politics. Educate.
That would be it, at least when it comes to the optimum options.
Of course, you can mix them.
For example, live your life spontaneously. Fuck around and travel until you're 30, and then switch from option 1) to 2).
Or mix options 2) with 3), so you have a good circle of close family and friends, but on the side you are also trying to improve the world a little bit.
Going just for an option 1) or 2) could make you bored or unfulfilled after some time. Going just for an option 3) could make you feel lonely or simple go insane, even if you consider yourself as a very strong person.
--
What about the case if somebody is just passing the time, without thinking about the reasons and purpose of his everyday actions? It's a peaceful option, because he doesn't have to chase anything. Besides, I can never argue that one's life is better than the other's.
I won't be trying to persuade everybody that you should be "pursuing your own happiness" 24 / 7, because that's actually going to end up with you not being happy at all.
However, for me staying in one place and passing the time is not an option. From my own experience I already know that I get bored too quickly while doing nothing. The thought of having my whole life gone and not doing anything special with it, slowly eats me from the inside and immediately forces me to do something more. I think it started right after I quit playing computer games, which I've done for 10 years in a row, sometimes even as much as about 200-300h monthly. That was my "OK, that's enough" moment. "There's much more better things you can get out from your life."
I don't think there are any other good options than those three I mentioned above. For example, if during your life the only thing you are craving is attention or fulfilling expectations of others, then it's very likely you are doing something wrong.
Which option do you choose?