A Quote by Nicky Gumbel

I think a lot of people do have questions about life, 'What's the purpose of my life?', 'What's the meaning of my life?', 'Why am I here?' ... It's hard to find a place where you can discuss those issues. You can't go down to the pub and say, 'What do you think the meaning of life is?' But actually, most people have those questions, somewhere in the back of their minds. And if you can find a place where you can discuss it with a group of people who, like you, are outside of the Church, and it's a non-threatening, relaxed environment, quite a lot of people want to do that.
I want everybody to find meaning in whatever they do. That's the only purpose to life, actually. Let that meaning be so strong that you can't not wake up every day and be like, "Yep, this is what I gotta do, let's keep it moving" and not be disgruntled about it, and start using other people as excuses for why you're not creating a better life for yourself.
One of the things you'll discover... as you listen to your own soul is that you spend a great amount of your life trying to bring meaning to your own life. And, by the way, most people are not going to church, so the place they're actually trying to find meaning in their life is at work.
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss other people. Life's too short to worry about what other people do or don't do. Tend your own backyard, not theirs, because yours is the one you have to live in.
What Alpha offers, and what is attracting thousands of people, is permission, rare in secular culture, to discuss the big questions - life and death and their meaning.
Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. Meaning has not to be discovered; it has to be created. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.
I was dealing with a lot of spiritual questions like "Who am I?" "What is God" "What is the meaning of life?" All of these questions that I think we can either face head on or choose to ignore, it's up to us.
For many years, questions about the meaning of life were dismissed as senseless. We were told that life, not being a word or sentence or anything language-like, can't intelligibly be said to have meaning. An encouraging development in the last couple of decades is a return by philosophers to addressing - as nearly all people do at some time or another - the question of life's meaning.
Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then, kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You live, and cannot understand the meaning of life - then finish it, and do not fool about in life, saying and writing that you do not understand it. You have come into good company where people are contented and know what they are doing; if you find it dull and repulsive - go away!
I just think it's a time where there is a lot of uncertainty. People are questioning life and the finality of life and what happens in the after life. I think sometimes when religions aren't answering certain questions people search elsewhere.
When people ask me silly questions about my private life, I just say, I don't discuss that.
I always find it kind of more interesting when people ask questions like, "What were you like as a kid?" Or just kind of personal history stuff, like, "What was the lowest point of your life?" Because that would be like, "Huh, well, I'd have to think about that one." And then give an honest answer. I think a lot of people don't want to give honest answers, or they just are in business showbiz mode when they're talking about stuff, so that's probably why a lot of that kind of thing doesn't get asked.
My private history in terms of people in my life who are dead is very easy to discuss. I don't feel those people can be threatened or intruded upon now. But I am enormously protective of the people who are currently in my life, my existing friends and family. That is where the curtain is drawn.
A lot of my work is helping people to find their own life's purpose and then follow it. I find that when people are not working on their life's purpose there is a sense of emptiness and anxiety.
When people ask me what philosophy is, I say philosophy is what you do when you don't know what the right questions are yet. Once you get the questions right, then you go answer them, and that's typically not philosophy, that's one science or another. Anywhere in life where you find that people aren't quite sure what the right questions to ask are, what they're doing, then, is philosophy.
Why do I write about China? That is a very good question. I think there are questions about China that I haven't been able to answer. The reason I write is that there are questions to which I want to find answers - or I want to find questions beyond those questions.
I feel like 2013 was one giant snowball of me being confused with my place in life and within the group. A lot of it was self-confidence issues, a lot of outside issues, and a lot of me questioning the future of what I was doing. And my mistake was letting all that influence me so that I wasn't the best I could be in life!
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