What Are We Supposed To Learn In This Life?

If we think that this life has a purpose, then just what is it we are supposed to learn?

After life is said and done will we have learned all the things what we were supposed to?

To add meaning to life it is worthwhile to think about some of the things we think we should learn in life.

When people are younger they tend to think things like status, nice cars and high-priced material possessions are what is important. Younger people tend to focus a lot of their energy toward these things. As we age we start to ask if this is enough. Is there more to life? As people age further they should slowly start to realize that things like health and friendships (bringing appreciation) are more important than possessions.

Although God is in control this blog speculates on possible things humans should learn from their time on earth. As mentioned in a previous post the author's opinion is that the meaning of life comes from the things we are supposed to learn on earth prior to spending eternity with the Creator. (That is a long time).

The following are examples of some guesses of what we should learn on our time on earth:

The Kinds Of Wisdom That Should Be Acquired In Life

1. Patience

Modern society tends to want things immediately, such as microwaving, social media and cell phones. However, meaningful things do not always happen right away. Much of what humans are impatient about are things they do not control. Some of the lessons of life, like the ones mentioned below, take numerous years to learn.

2. The Value of life and its fragility

How many young people are taken from life by things like accidents and illness? Perhaps God wants us to stop and think how easily he could take our lives, also. The reality is that human life on earth does not last forever. When you look back at your life what kind of person do you want to be looking at?

3. To Appreciate things like health

If a person has a lot of wealth without the health to enjoy it, then does the wealth have the same value to them? If a person does not have either it can be even more difficult.

The value of health tends to get more noticeable with age. If you make bad choices long enough it tends to have an impact at some point.

4. To devalue power, status

From a spiritual perspective the more material items a person has the more the person wants. Several professional baseball players have turned down multimillion dollar contracts. It is not viewed as enough if a player with comparable statistics makes more. Thus, it is less about material things and more about character. Becoming too attached to material things can effect character.

Also it is common knowledge that power can corrupt people. People in these situations devalue certain things in life and their thinking changes.

5. To think of others

How much value is there to life when a person only thinks of self? Many psychological studies show a link between happiness and how many social connections a person has. If you received good news and didn't have anyone to tell it to, how good would the news be? Thinking of others could also include keeping negative comments about others to yourself. The other person might have things they could say about you, also.

When you look back at your life do you want to see someone who hurt others to get what they wanted?

Picture from stockfreeimages.com

6. Humans generally want appreciation of some sort

Why does a person want an expensive car, for example? The utility of the vehicle can be similar to a lower priced vehicle, but the person wants to be noticed, recognized, admired, etc.

This are other ways of saying appreciation and many everyday things like spousal arguments are based in appreciation. The disagreements might appear to be over things like money or work, but appreciation is usually involved.

As something connected to appreciation, perhaps we are here to learn that humans have feelings. If we live long enough we might start to realize that in a manner that people hurt us emotionally we eventually do the same to other people in similar situations.

This is a brief list and there could be many more life lessons to add to the list.

A reason for these posts in general is for people to think more, and about life in general.

Some might think that some people do not live long enough to learn these things. Questions like these are answerable by God and not by humans. Humans are only aware of a small part of the whole picture.

There is more to life than what happens each day and the underlying significance is often out of human comprehension.

Or maybe, just maybe, our guide Jesus wants us to experience firsthand what suffering is like so we have some small idea of what he went through to atone for our sins.