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A humanist approaches the question of how
to live a life that’s full of meaning and

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significance, a life of real value to the
person living it, and to the people with whom

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the humanist has relationships, by thinking
about this question of what it is to be human.

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We learn a great deal about human nature from
literature, from history, from philosophy,

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from psychology, from learning as much as
we can about the commonalities among human

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beings, and about the great diversities that
separate human beings from one another also.

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We learn a great deal about the human condition
from those same sources, from history and

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politics and psychology and philosophy, because
the human condition is one which has many

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opportunities in it, of course, for good things,
and for pleasure and for happiness. But also

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there’s a lot of struggle, and there can
be sadness, there can be grief. After all,

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the people we care about die and we ourselves
are mortal. And so to think about this rich

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panoply of aspects of what it is to be human,
to be reflective about it, is to answer a

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great question asked by Socrates a long time
ago. Socrates asked the question: How should

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we live? What sort of people should we be?
And the answer that he gave was not specific

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to any one person, or any one way of life,
it was a very general answer. He said: The

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kind of life truly worth living is the life
thought about, the considered life, the chosen

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life. And so what’s distinctive about the
humanist approach to living, is that acceptance

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of that deep responsibility to take charge
of one’s choices, and to try to live a life

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which is creative, and which is good to live.

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When you consider that the humanist challenge

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is to take responsibility, to think for yourself,
to try to work out how you can make your life

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a really meaningful and valuable one, it might
seem life quite a tough challenge. But there

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is indeed a great deal of help here. One is
the tradition in literature, in history, in

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philosophy from which we can learn so much
about these matters, but there are also our

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friendships and our loves and our families
and communities, from whom we learn a great

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deal too. The idea of humanism as a kind of
conversation we have with ourselves and with

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other people; a conversation which helps us
get insights into this business of being human,

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which helps us to make the choices that are
particularly well adapted to our own personal

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talents and capacities for living really meaningful
and worthwhile lives. That’s a resource

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we can make use of all the time. We are, after
all, social animals, we human beings, and we

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can help one another and learn from one another,
especially if we are reflective and thoughtful

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about everything that we hear, everything
that we read, everything that we see - we

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can put all that inside to work in making
lives that are genuinely good and worthwhile ones.

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There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model of what
makes such a life. In fact, all the great

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ideologies of history, the great political
ideologies, the great religions, have all

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offered one-size-fits-all models. But given
the diversity of human nature, and the different

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talents and capacities we have for creating
meaningful lives, it must be the case - and

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this is something that humanists recognise
with joy really - that there are as many possible

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good lives as there are people to create them.
So when you think about the meaning of life,

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what you have to remember is that, the meaning
of your life is what you make it.