“What is life?” normally this question occurs when we are under stress and struggle when we are weak, confused and sad. For me it occurred when I was studying Science in PUC. I know that many people, the moment they read the word Science they will be like, “Oh now we know the reason why it occurred to him”. That is one of the reasons but not the exact point.

When I came to PUC, I was determined to study. Many times I even skipped lunch and dinner to keep up. As everyone said Science is the most difficult stream, I opted it to prove that I am the best by scoring good marks on board and CET. I was doing very well, I even got a good result in I PUC.

But suddenly the COVID-19 pandemic happened and everyone was forced to shut down their shops and businesses. Even schools and colleges had to shut down.

At the same time, as I was not eating properly, it affected my health very badly. I fell sick, I was in my worse physical condition, I could barely walk. At that time I realized where I had messed up and what I had gone wrong. That is the exact moment this question occurred to me. Moreover, this question made me restless.

All these days I was living a life and I don’t know what is life.

So the first thing I did was ask my parents this question. At first they thought I was acting crazy but eventually, they answered saying:

“Life is full of troubles and sacrifices”.

I was not satisfied with the answer, so I asked my uncle. He said:

“Life is full of adjustments”.

I was still not satisfied, so I kept on asking people.

Intelligent and competitive people say:

“Life is like a game”.

Joyful people say:

“Life is beautiful”.

And so it went on. None of them satisfied me, until one day I asked this question to my friend’s grandmother. She was very friendly, so I asked her. She said:

“I don’t know”.

So straightforward and simple, I was shocked by the answer. I said:

“You have so much experience of life, you have lived so long and you say ‘I don’t know’!”

She replied saying:

“You asked what is life. If you want to know my experience of life, I will say it.”

It was not the answer, but yet true and satisfying.

The reason why we don’t know what is life is because we never questioned it. And when it was asked or occurred, instead of admitting that we don’t know, we concluded our life experiences as the answer.

Our experience completely depends upon our thoughts, emotions and situation that we faced in our life. Who knows if I had opted another stream instead of Science, maybe this question would have never occurred to me.

We all have seen that in some situations when one person is struggling to handle something, the same situation is handled by another person at ease. We all have witnessed this in our life in some way or the other.

How we handle the situation in life makes our thoughts, emotions and experiences of life accordingly.

So now I understood why the question had so many answers even though they don’t know the answer. They conclude their experiences, thoughts and emotions as the definition of life.

The reason why we will never know the answer is because we are living in the reality of our mind, not in the existential reality.

We may think we are the strongest, greatest and the most intelligent person, but compared to this universe we are not even dust.

When we are happy, everything around us looks great. When we are sad, everything around us feels terrible and irritating. We all have experienced this.

Another reason is that we have never concentrated on life.

Because of our greed and pleasures:

• we have killed many animals,
• chopped off countless trees,
• caused extinction of many species,
• reached the verge of destroying Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystem,

and yet we are not finished. We need more.

Today we know how to extract protein from bacteria, but still more than 40% of humanity is starving and malnourished . In this way, we will know absolutely nothing about life.

Even what we think is right, what we desire, is not truly ours. It is influenced on us by someone or something—our parents, our relatives, social media, and other things.

Essentially, what I am trying to say is that we have never even tried to focus on ourselves.

The reason is because we have learned to jump to conclusions when we don’t know the answer just to look smart.

We are not brave and honest enough to accept that we don’t know. We have made our priorities greater than the universe itself.

Now, after reading this you may think:

“Does this boy know the answer”

My answer to that is no.

But do I know the way or the path to find it? Not completely sure (but at least I questioned it).

How long it would take? I don’t know.