Kindness as the Meaning of Life?. There is no correct answer, but it’s… | by Szőcs-Torma Márton | Oct, 2025

In the past months thinking about the purpose of life got more and more frequent. Questioning everything, starting from university, through the meaning of travelling and most importantly, the way I behave in certain situations, or more broadly, who am I.

Having just finished Yuval Noah Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” book, amplifies the questions inside me. From a point, I have experienced some kind of relief by reading it, but to be honest, I am not able to express where did it lead me. But at least, I can come with the excuse that he gave, that it is okay that we don’t know how we feel about certain things, or we cannot explain our thoughts, because they are very intricate. What is more, even by trying telling others how we feel, it’s not 100% accurate, not even talking about how might the other half perceive it.

What I do know though, is that I can recommend this book to everyone, because it pops questions that we don’t really bump into in our everyday, hustling lives. It makes you think, pushes you to evaluate your current state of life and provides an out of the box perspective of the world and ourselves.

As I have just said, I don’t know the purpose of life. It is very highly likely that you don’t know yours either. And I find the beauty of it in this never ending story. I could bring it in parallel with running. No matter how many kms you run daily, how many days you have been running in a streak, how fast you are able to run, you will always need that desire, will power to go further, step by step. Theoretically speaking, you could always run faster for longer. And it’s probably the same with any type of movement. I just talk about running, because that’s what I’m passionate about, what brings me joy, and puts me in the so-called “Flow state”. It is very close to the effects of meditation, but at the same time, a bit different.

Even though we are not aware of the true meaning of life, we designate meaning to the things that we believe in. What is more, in my opinion, there are certain acts, behaviors that can also be a part of the “meaning of life”. In other words, by facilitating them, we could all live a happier, friendlier life.

In my other stories I have already mentioned this more briefly, but now I would like to raise more awareness to being kind and helping others.

Each and every one of us has problems. That’s how life is. Once we get something, we always want more, and by that, we face new difficulties. One of the most powerful ailment to help cure this aspect is by spreading love and lending a helping hand.

There is this Buddha quote saying, that “If you can’t do good, at least do no harm”. We have all heard about this. But did we all act accordingly? When we are in the middle of a debate for example, we might loose control above ourselves and tell the other half mean things, that later we regret. That is a point where our alarms should go off and warn us to intervene.

In high-stress situations we tend to forget about true values and put everything on winning the race, no matter what it takes. But most of the times, after the storm passes and we start analyzing our tactics, we sometimes might feel overwhelmed by our harsh, unethical steps.

I know, that this is a topic which again fits the “it is easier said than done” theory, but we can always evolve and work on ourselves. This can probably be one of the meanings of life, that we refine, fine-tune ourselves, our behaviors.

However, there is a different side to it.

Previously, I talked about our reactions in these high-stake moments, but there is more to kindness, and we all know this. We can embed kindness in our everyday lives.

Only for some examples, one day I was coming home from the university and saw an elderly woman carrying her heavy shopping cart up the stairs. I went up to her, grabbed the cart and took it up. Even though we didn’t speak the same language, there was an act that is universal for everyone: smiling.

A different story, that happened quite recently was in our staircase. When I entered the building I saw a man with crutches. He was just about to enter the elevator, but because he had those crutches, he was struggling opening the door of the elevator. Went there, opened it for him and started going up the stairs. After one floor, he stopped. I opened it again for him and then came the universal language: the smile.

These small actions which don’t require anything more, but 5 seconds from your time can make one’s day. What is even better, that it works both ways. It not only makes them feel better, but you also uplift your own day.

One night, I had a conversation with an Indian woman from the flat. The topic was the same: spreading kindness. She told me, that she tries to do a good deed every day. Nowadays, so many interactions happen among us, that doing only one good deed a day is easier than we would think.

For the ending, although giving advice to anyone about anything is dangerous, I think that in this sense, it can be an exception.

Let’s follow the Indian woman’s wisdom, and try to make the world a better place.