Given that life in itself is meaningless, what do we have in mind when we talk about the "meaning of life"? Is it something we invent on the spot and discard it later if something new comes along, when a new situation appears? Or is it something more stable, something that transcends the here and now, the whims and moods of the moment?

Is there a structure that all our personal meanings of life have in common?
The following pattern comes to my mind: The naked, isolated "me" certainly is meaningless, until the "me" is linked to something larger: the family, my friends, my job, my country, the political cause I am engaged in, or even a supernatural order into which I can tap to receive a purpose "from above", aka "religion".

The common pattern is that meaning always comes from the outside. It is a common misconception that the meaning of life can come from within. Everything that is "inside" has its origins in the outside, without it, the "inside" is void and non-existent. We have to latch onto something other, something larger to fill this inner void, to have an "I" in the first place.