WHAT IS LIFE?
By Oluwole Solanke (PhD, FCIB)
There are moments when we stop—truly stop—in the middle of our racing days and ask ourselves the question that has echoed through human consciousness since the dawn of thought itself: What is life?
It’s a question that has no single answer, yet demands to be asked. It whispers to us in moments of joy and screams at us in moments of pain. It arrives uninvited when we watch a sunset, hold a newborn, or stand at a graveside.
The Beautiful Paradox
Life is the universe’s most exquisite paradox. It is simultaneously everything and nothing, permanent and fleeting, simple and impossibly complex. We search for its meaning in philosophy books and sacred texts, in laboratories and meditation halls, only to discover that life might be less about finding answers and more about learning to live with the questions.
As Rainer Maria Rilke so beautifully wrote: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”
Perhaps that is the secret. Perhaps life is not a riddle to be solved but a mystery to be lived.
A Canvas of Moments
If you strip away all the complexity, all the biology and philosophy, life reveals itself as a magnificent collection of moments. Some blaze across our consciousness like shooting stars—a first kiss, a dream achieved, a hand held during a difficult goodbye. Others are quiet, almost invisible: the smell of coffee on a Sunday morning, a stranger’s unexpected kindness, the way light filters through autumn leaves.
Viktor Frankl, who survived unimaginable suffering in Nazi concentration camps, discovered something profound about life’s essence: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Life, then, is also about choice. Not always the choice of what happens to us, but always the choice of how we respond.
The Sacred Ordinary
We spend so much time waiting for life to begin—after graduation, after the promotion, after we find love, after retirement—that we forget life is already happening. It’s happening in the mundane, in the ordinary, in the spaces between our grand plans.
Life is the exhausted parent reading one more bedtime story. It’s the artist who keeps creating despite never being discovered. It’s the elderly couple holding hands in comfortable silence, their love no longer needing words. It’s every person who gets up each morning and tries again, despite yesterday’s failures.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” John Lennon reminded us. How often do we need to hear this before we truly listen?
The Symphony of Connection
At its core, life is a connection. We are not isolated islands but threads woven into an intricate tapestry. Every interaction, every relationship, every moment of genuine human contact adds color and texture to our existence.
We are the stories we tell each other around fires and dinner tables. We are the laughter shared with friends who know our worst selves and love us anyway. We are the tears shed together in moments of loss, the unspoken understanding in a knowing glance, the courage borrowed from someone who believed in us when we couldn’t believe in ourselves.
Maya Angelou understood this deeply: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
This is how we live forever—not through monuments or wealth, but through the echoes we leave in other hearts.
The Courage to Feel
Life demands that we feel everything. Not selectively, not just the pleasant emotions, but everything. The joy and the grief. The hope and the disappointment. The love and the heartbreak. To live fully is to embrace our capacity to feel, even when it hurts.
We live in a world that often tells us to numb ourselves, to stay comfortable, to avoid pain at all costs. But what if pain is not life’s mistake but its teacher? What if our scars are not signs of defeat but medals of survival?
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths,” wrote Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. “These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.”
A Journey Without a Map
Life is a journey without a destination, a story without a final chapter, a dance without choreography. We stumble and spin, sometimes gracefully, often clumsily, always authentically if we’re brave enough.
There will be days when you question everything, when the weight of existence feels too heavy to carry. In those moments, remember this: your presence matters. The fact that you are here, reading these words, breathing this air, experiencing this moment—it matters.
You are not too much or too little. You are not behind schedule in some cosmic race. You are exactly where you need to be, learning what you need to learn, becoming who you need to become.
The Answer That Changes Everything
So what is life?
Life is this very moment, and this one, and this one after that. It’s the breath you just took and the one you’re about to take. It’s the beating of your heart, the thoughts flowing through your mind, the emotions rising and falling like waves.
Life is the courage to begin again after every ending. It’s the faith to take one more step even when you can’t see the path. It’s the love you give, the kindness you offer, the light you shine into dark corners.
As Mary Oliver asked in her profound poem: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
There it is—the question that reframes everything. Not “what is life?” but “what will you do with yours?”
Your One Wild and Precious Chance
You are alive. Despite astronomical odds, despite the chaos of the universe, despite everything that could have gone differently—you are here. Your heart is beating. Your mind is thinking. Your spirit is reaching for something more.
This is not a dress rehearsal. This is not practice. This is it—your one chance to experience this miracle called existence.
So dance in your kitchen when no one is watching. Forgive the person who hurt you, not because they deserve it, but because you deserve peace. Create something, anything—a painting, a poem, a garden, a life. Tell the people you love that you love them. Take the trip. Learn the language. Make the call. Try again.
Life is not a problem to be solved or a test to be passed. It’s a gift to be unwrapped slowly, with wonder, with gratitude, with trembling hands and an open heart.
In the end, perhaps the meaning of life is simply this: to live it. Fully, bravely, authentically. To show up for your own existence with curiosity and courage. To leave this world a little brighter than you found it. To love deeply, feel profoundly, and dare greatly.
What is life? It’s yours. It’s now. It’s calling you to awaken to its magic.
Will you answer?
