This past summer, when the nieces came for their annual cousin-camp, I took the fab foursome (nieces + my own two) on a trek through the MIT and Harvard campuses. I believe in the power of visualizing where you want to be, and, to have the goals in your head be colored in some detail. As they took the gorgeous buildings in, role-played being students & professors, or giving lectures in auditoriums, the chatter was non-stop and arbitrary – commentary on buildings, students, what they’d play when they got home, etc.

But then, Little #1 asked, “Mommy, what’s the point? What’s the point of all this? I mean, you go to a good school, and then you work, and then you die? Is that what life is? Is that the point?”

And Little #2 added, “What if all life is just a long sleep? What if we are dreaming our all this (she means our reality)? What if….we are someone else’s Minecraft world?”

Whoa! From the mouths of babes. I responded that they had asked some really big questions and that philosophers have been pondering these for millennia. Little #1 goes, “Huh? Philosophers have been asking Melania Trump about this stuff? Why?” Peals of laughter as I explain it’s millennia, and not Melania, though I’m sure she has her thoughts on the subject.

But seriously, how do you answer some of this big stuff? My personal approach is to give a range of opinions and then tell them what I think.

Q: What is the point of life?

A: Well, some people think that life is about living out the expectations of others. Their parents might think they should go to X college, follow Y career path and so on. Their friends and loved ones might expect a certain image maintained. And for these people, if they’ve lived that life and hit all the milestones, then that’s a life well-lived.

Others might think that life is about trying to make a better life for those that come after them, whether their own children, or society at large. They might care about longer term things that wouldn’t impact their own lives, and that they might not even live to see happen. But if they’ve moved the needle a little, then that to them is a life well-spent.

Personally, I said that life was about following a path of learning, exploration and self-fulfillment, all accomplished while helping move the world to a better place. My personal goal remains to have left the world a better place for my having been in it. If the great part of the sum of all my words & actions toward other people, living beings, society, the world have had a positive impact, then I’m good. I’ve done ok.

What about you? What do you think the point of life is? Always looking to learn from other perspectives!