I agree with everything you said, except I do not think i'd want to sit on a rock for very long. lol

I always end up at two meaning's of life, and it quite paralyzes me sometimes.

To be happy.

To strive for excellence, and excellence being making this world (yourself included) better every moment you can.

Should you strive for excellence to such a point that your no longer happy?

I pose these hypothetical's to myself all the time:

If you have six months left on earth to live as you choose, but you can cure cancer by isolating yourself and doing miserable work but it will take the whole six months and as soon as you get the method written out on how to do it, you can only get it out by uploading it to the internet anonymously, should you?

Now, if you being happy means you actually have to make this world a worse place to enjoy yourself, should you?

If you could not feel anything except by killing people you thought that were good people, and that made you feel happy, should you? Would you?

I live so the day I die gets closer.
I live to push my body to its limit.
I live so I can become aware of my surroundings as much as possible before I die.
I live to teach my body as much as possible about itself.
I live for awareness.
I live for the pursuit of happiness.

I live for my family. Period. And I'm damned happy to do it.

So far, all I can say is that I live to keep laughing about life in general, with all it's crazy mysteries and beautiful simple pleasures.

It's all too intense to take seriously any more.

Edit: I also live for Love, however and whenever it comes. In whatever form it takes for as long or as short as it lasts.

I live for my family, for the pleasures inherent in watching the kids grow, to watch the growing things in my garden. I live for sunrises and sunsets, and the change of seasons. I live to read books, and for learning something new every day. I live for the wide variety of experiences available in life, and for trying to make some sense of it all.
& like Gilda said, I'm convinced that living beats the alternative!

I live to learn new things...
I live for the hope to find love...
I live because the longer I live, the more experience I get...every day makes me wiser
I live to dream of endless possibilities

I live to realize my dream of being rich and buying what I want, when I want, and being able to help others with vast amounts of wealth. Sounds stupid but I won't stop until it happens.

I live to see how it's all going to turn out. Every day is a surprise, even the ones that are just like all the other days, there's something new and interesting or enjoyable, like a particularly good nap, or a nice email from someone I haven't heard from. In the larger scheme of things, I feel like I'm part of a big story, and I have no idea what my part is, and it's my job to kind of improvise the part and then see how it relates to the bigger plot. There are days when I'm afraid it's going to be a tragedy in which the human race annihalates itself, but most days I think I'm going to leave in the middle of a chapter and think "wait, but I want to see how it ends!"

That sounds odd, but really that's the closest I can come to what keeps me going. That I have no idea where I'll be in 5 months or 5 years or 50 years.

I have to admit, some days the primary reason I get out of bed is because I'm hungry and I'm addicted to cereal. I can't start my day without cereal. And if I'm out of cereal and/or milk for some reason... it's pretty hard to find a reason to emerge from my nest. :)

Other reasons for living... inertia. An object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest stays at rest. Unless I'm edging on serious depression (which is the "rest" part), I am usually inclined to maintain my life-momentum and just keep right on moving. Hard to explain. It just is.

I live for the freedom, well-being and happiness of myself and my girlfriend.

I'm alive. I'm still breathing. Might as well do something productive.

Why do I have to have a reason? I live because that's what I know how to do. There's no method or driving force; I just know that whenever I consider the alternative it seems like life is the more appealing option. I should suppose that I will continue living until this proves to no longer be the case.