Here is an interesting thought from Irvin Yalom's book "The Gift of Therapy", from chapter 44 'Talk About Life Meaning':

"We humans appear to be meaning-seeking creatures who have had the misfortune of being thrown into a world devoid of meaning. One of our major tasks is to invent a meaning sturdy enough to support a life and to perform the tricky maneuver of denying our personal authorship of this meaning. Thus we conclude instead that it was 'out there' waiting for us. Our oncoing search for substantial meaning systems often throws us into crises of meaning."