Meaning of life interviews

I talked to a few people about their perspective on a meaningful life. I asked the following questions:

-Overall, is your life meaningful?

-What specific aspects of your life are meaningful?

-What specific aspects of your life are meaningless? 

-Overall, is your life enjoyable? 

-Are some lives more meaningful/meaningless than others?

-Do you think it's important to analyze your life in terms of meaning?

-Does education play a role in determining how meaningful your life is? 

-Can you make your life any more meaningful? Do you plan to? 

Initially, everyone I talked to said that overall, their life is meaningful. When I asked what specific aspects of their life are meaningful, they also all stated that family was the most important. 

However, my dad also stated that religion is important as well. When I asked why,  he said "Because it gives you a built in purpose for living, like how family does." I asked him if people who don't believe in anything have a purpose in life and he said "Yea I guess, if they find something to look forward to thats bigger than life. Or else I don't know how they wake up every morning....(laughs)for what?" I asked him what aspects of life were meaningless, and he said all of them really. I reminded him that he thought family was meaningful, so I asked him to clarify. He said "Yea, but I mean why do I gotta work everyday from 8 to 12, for what? To barely pay my bills. And in the end who cares? I'm gonna die anyway. So why do we come by for around 80 years if we're lucky, not even a fraction of this planet's lifespan? Why? What's the purpose? I said family is the purpose but when I die I'm not taking no one with me not even my kids. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, thats all it is. Nothing else. So why am I here? What is this? What do I acomplish?" So then I said, if everything is meaningless, that means that everyones life is meaningless, and there is no way to add more meaning to it, correct? He said "Look, people who think they can add meaning to their life are fooling themselves. The only way to really have a purpose is to know why your here in the first place. Anyone who thinks they know why we are here, and they think they got it all figured out, and they think they're so wise, those are the really stupid people." I asked him if he enjoys his life and he said "Yea, I like to enjoy myself. But that doesn't answer any questions. That's temporary." 

Everyone I interviewed agreed with him that their life is enjoyable. However, my mom had a different view in the sence that she thought everything in life had meaning. I was helping her clean the bathroom while I was talking to her, so I asked if cleaning the bathroom was meaningful. She said "Yes, because when the house is clean you feel good. To me that's meaningful." I asked her if then feeling good was what determined the meaning of something. She said "Yes. If something makes you feel bad, or it's not something your happy with, change it. It shouldn't have any meaning in your life." I then asked her if she thought it was important to analyze how meaningful your life is. She said "No, you get no where. If you are happy with your life and you make choises based on what you know to be good for you, that's the best you can do. You can drive yourself crazy thinking about it all you want but that doesn't lead you to a better life." 

I also asked my cousin if education played a role in having a meaningful life and she it does to some extent. I asked her to be specific and she said "An education doesn't always mean your smart, but it can almost always get you a job, which you need to get by." She followed up by saying "It has no direct affect, and no garantees". 

My friend Katherine (not from SOF) said that an education was important in having a meaningful life because "If you don't get an education then you can't get certain jobs. Then your whole life is a money struggle and there's no meaning in that. So unless your born rich, you need an education to have a good & meaningful life."