The meaning of life (a work in progress)

The meaning of life is something that many people ponder, especially as we grow older and start to take stock of our lives and the things we have accomplished and those things that we have left undone, the things that we never wanted to do that we have had no choice but to do, and things that we desperately wanted to do that have eluded us.

So what exactly is the meaning of life?  I think that the meaning of our lives is as individual as we are.  We are responsible for giving our lives meaning.  

A friend of mine recently posed this question to her Facebook friends and of the 16 that answered, she got 16 different thoughts.  One person responded that life has no inherent meaning.  Meaning is something that we humans have assigned to things, that it is a byproduct of our brains architecture.  To an extent I do agree with that thought.  Things have no meaning except what we give them.  They are just things.  For example, there is a candle on my desk.  It is just a candle to anyone else, but it has sentimental value for me. 

We assign things meanings to help ourselves make sense of the things that happen to us.  To help us identify other people who might be willing to join us in our struggles, and to give us a reason to keep struggling.  Because life is a struggle and ultimately we are alone.  No one else has the exact same experiences that we do, and no one else perceives things the way we do.  All of our experiences and perceptions have made us who we are and as such we are the ones who shape our world and we are the only ones who perceive the world the way we do.     

So, if the meaning of our lives is to give life meaning I guess the question should not be "What is the meaning of life", but rather "What do I want my life to be?"