What is your definition of "a life"?

[Synobun]

Society seems to throw around "You don't have a life" or "I wish I had a life" rather easily, but what exactly IS a "life"?

To you, what is the definition? Do you need to be out and about a certain extent of time, do you need to achieve significant things, etc?

For me, it pretty much means the level of activity you do per day. If you don't stay in the same place for more than a couple hours at a time, I'd consider that having a life, or only being stationary for the night or something. Even if you're doing menial tasks around the neighbourhood, I'd still consider it more of a life than sitting on the couch all day, for example.

 

[ghostmaker650]

Doing what ever you enjoy and makes you happy. Whether that's sitting on the couch all day or not. If your happy; you have a life, regardless if someone else has other ideas of happiness.

 

[Antilogic]

Most people would implicitly add the word "social" to that expression, implying that people without lives are those who don't do activities outside of their dwelling or otherwise interact with society.

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't mean heavy drinking and dancing (I can't stand that scene, the few times I have tried it were enough to prove that it wasn't for me). It means doing something that interests you and at least part of the time you are interacting with society, whether a crowd or just a few friends.

 

[Narz]

You are a good minion Synsensa

I don't really use the expression, to each their own.

 

[emzie]

Being honestly fulfilled, or working towards that.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Doing what ever you enjoy and makes you happy. Whether that's sitting on the couch all day or not. If your happy; you have a life, regardless if someone else has other ideas of happiness.

Pretty much this. I spent a lot of time as a child in the library reading books, and people used to tell me to get a life, apparently not understanding that I didn't need them to get in my way.

When you find your own path and remove the a-holes and other obstacles, that's when you've got a life.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

"a life" seems to me a way of life which reflects broad cultural ideas of how life is supposed to be, characterized by (almost) everybody in principle being able to fulfill those ideas.
The already mentioned interaction with society is a good one. I would add to have some sort of goal or reason. Nothing necessarily spectacular. Just something. Contributing to society instead of mere interaction belongs there portably, too. And if one does it by sitting at the supermarket checkout. Oh and I would also add private social interaction.

I don't think fulfillment is one though. That then would be "a good life" or something else. Otherwise, the plain simple "get a life" would be rather stupid, as it is stupid to suggest to "just get fulfillment, dude" for its rather intangible character.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't think it means anything. The good life, now there's something worth talking about, but just "a life"? That means you're not dead yet.

 

[Lone Wolf]

A life is a life of a proletarian worker. The "lives" of bourgeois and petty bourgeois exploiters are not to be acknowledged as lives at all. Anything else is crass class collaborationism. Long live the workers' struggle!

This is my perceptive Marxist analysis of the issue.

 

[CavLancer]

'A life' is a phrase that means something other than just being alive.

A life is imo activity related to achieving an end. I'm going out to meet a girl, or build a bridge, anything constructive. Having a life means that you don't sit at home and wish you had something to do. It also means that your goal is not to rob a store or bank or in some way bring harm, that's not having a life imo, neither is engaging in dangerous thrill seeking. I like to build things and that's what I've been doing, and living in such a way as to make my wife happy, not being destructive to good relationships. I've got a life.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I don't think it means anything. The good life, now there's something worth talking about, but just "a life"? That means you're not dead yet.

So the phrase "get a life" is to be understood as people trying to bring to live biological dead other people by asking them to?

edit: Nevermind, the thread asks for personal definitions. In that context I'll join the "not dead" crowed.

 

[Joecoolyo]

If you are living you have a life.

Screw you its really as simple as that. Everyone uses that term to deride someone who spends their free-time differently then they do. If you ask everyone if they have a life, no doubt, 90% will say yes, no matter what they do with it.

 

[Traitorfish]

A life is a life of a proletarian worker. The "lives" of bourgeois and petty bourgeois exploiters are not to be acknowledged as lives at all. Anything else is crass class collaborationism. Long live the workers' struggle!

This is my perceptive Marxist analysis of the issue.

(Funny thing, Marx said the exact opposite- that the life of the worker was no life at all. That's basically the whole point of communism, as far as he was concerned. )

So the phrase "get a life" is to be understood as people trying to bring to live biological dead other people by asking them to?

I see it as people trying to rationalise their own continued not-dying by constructing alternative ways of being as ultimately equivalent to biological non-life. So, in a certain sense, yes, exactly.

 

[Crezth]

When people say "get a life," they generally mean to go outside sometimes and talk to people (maybe even make eye contact).

That's why it's such a popular exhortation on the internet.

 

[Lone Wolf]

(Funny thing, Marx said the exact opposite- that the life of the worker was no life at all. That's basically the whole point of communism, as far as he was concerned)

You are a revisionist liberal who uses Marxian quotes out of context

 

[Traitorfish]

You are a revisionist liberal who uses Marxian quotes out of context

The proper disparagement is "historicist-humanist".

 

[Tee Kay]

For me, to Have A Life is to live in a way that generates positive energy that fulfils your soul and the universes'. By this I mean doing things that one both enjoys or finds spiritually fullfilling and which have a positive impact on the lives of others.

The quantity or level of activity you do doesn't really matter; a person sitting meditating in a forest (though she has to be really meditating in the true sense of the word and not simply shutting er eyes and sit still in a monk-like manner) or simply quietly reading has more of a life than someone who works in a farm or in an office but doesn't enjoy what he is doing. However, personal enjoyment alone doesn't mean that what one is doing is fulfilling; an activity has to be worthwhile practically too, and ones life needs to be balanced. A workaholic, though she enjoys her work, is not living a balanced life, and thus she is not leading a fulfilling life, though she may be under the illusion that she is.

Sometimes, I Feel Alive simply by reading a book that I enjoy, or talking to strangers on an online forum, but at other times these activities (particularly the latter) just makes me feel empty and highlights my shortcomings. Life is inconstant like that.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

"A life" is what society deems to be an acceptable use of your time. For example, an evening going drinking with friends is having "a life", while an evening playing video games with them online is not.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Hopefully another 10,000 or so days of fun . That'll do me fine .

 

[Tee Kay]

"A life" is what society deems to be an acceptable use of your time. For example, an evening going drinking with friends is having "a life", while an evening playing video games with them online is not.

Society is the imperfect union of all the individuals which makes it up; it cannot, technically, have an opinion.