What does life mean anyway?

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=130 BGCOLOR="#CC3300" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="42c25821dvmwjc.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCCB2" FACE="Arial" ><B><IMG SRC="42b32320.gif" border=0 width="50" height="50" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">  </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Whatever it takes...</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Whatever it takes..."><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>What does life mean anyway?</B>   |   <A HREF="id113.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Female Facial Hair"><U>Female Facial Hair</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id138.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Differences in Lifestyles"><U>Differences in Lifestyles</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="42ad2272ezwnvf.gif"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=350 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>What does life mean anyway?</I></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="603" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 1611 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Some Musings"><U>Some Musings</U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="446"><div> Today I was writing in my journal and I was suddenly thinking,  "Why am I doing this?  What's the purpose of this?  When I'm dead this will mean nothing."</div> <bR> <div> Sometimes I get the notion that nothing I do is worth doing and there is no point in it after all.  It seems so fruitless to do anything.  Once we die it will be for nothing anyway.</div> <bR> <div> I know that while I'm here on earth I should make my life count but some of the things I do seem so meaningless.  I'll get really caught up in a new thing I've learned and I'll be into it like crazy, maybe for years and then something will happen and I'll get side tracked or I lose interest or something more exciting appears, and all that I did before seems to have been worthless and nothing.</div> <bR> <div> I don't think my focus in life is aimed at the right things.  I know I should be maintaining a relationship with God, or a Higher Power, or whatever one wants to call it.  I have no faith and without faith I'm lost, drifting about going no where it seems.</div> <bR> <div> When I was a girl growing up in an all Catholic community I had faith aplenty.  I believed!  I believed firmly and with all my heart and soul.  I would have died for my beliefs.  I didn't know of anything else.  I hadn't seen and heard things that would change my outlook and beliefs yet.  I was an innocent.  Sadly, that has all changed.</div> <bR> <div> I entered the adult world.  I married, I had children, I knew some good times and some joy, but mostly I experienced the school of hard knocks.  I discovered that people weren't always nice.  I discovered that love wasn't what I thought it was.  I didn't even know anything about love although I thought I did at the time.  </div> <bR> <div> As the years went by and life happened to me, I became dissallusioned about life and God and religion.</div> <bR> <div> I don't think God and religion are one and the same.</div> <bR> <div> Religion has been used by man for his own good and been the excuse for horrifiying atrocities done to other men.</div> <bR> <div> I became so confused.  I'm still confused.  I don't know what I believe in any more.  I don't practice Catholicism.  I would never go back to the Catholic church, but yet, I haven't found any other religion that I want to be associated with either.</div> <bR> <div> There is so much blind belief in the Bible and I wonder why.  The Bible says it is divinely inspired by God, but who really said that?  Some man wrote it.  Who is to say he was speaking for God?</div> <bR> <div> No one really knows for sure about anything.  We can only guess and having faith in the words of the Bible give people comfort and peace and that is why so many follow it's teachings.  Let's not forget all the other religions of the world.  Buddaism, Islamic, Jewish and others.</div> <bR> <div> So what is the deal?</div> <bR> <div> I don't know and I want to know.  </div> <bR> <div> Deep down I know I believe in God, or a god, or some form of a higher power.  I can't say what it is for sure because I don't know.  It's something I feel inside of me, that guides me and talks to me.  Sometimes, well, a lot of the time, I don't listen.  That's my fault.</div> <bR> <div> I have tried to get back that faith I had as a child but I can't recapture it.  I don't know if I've lost it forever or if someday, as I near death, I'll find it returned.  I want it now and not just when I'm afraid or dying.  I want it while I'm young and while I have the good times left to me.</div> <bR> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>