What is the meaning of 'to get out of life'? I have never heard that phrase before and I wonder what it is supposed to express.It is from a song. The line goes like this:
don't take life too seriously! Nobody gets out of life anyway.
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1Can you provide the context e.g. a full sentence ? And state what you found via Google and why it was inadequate.– k1eranCommented Aug 20, 2016 at 11:16
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If it's something like "What do you want to get out of life?" then you should be able to make an attempt at understanding the meaning simply from each word.– Andrew Leach ♦Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 11:23
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1I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's correctly tagged "meaning-in-context" but no context is supplied. Nor is any evidence of prior research. The question will be re-openable when it's edited to include these.– Andrew Leach ♦Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 11:24
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1In that case it's not an idiom, it's a simple statement that everyone dies eventually. This is different from the idiom "getting something out of life", which means having some sort of satisfying existence.– Hot LicksCommented Aug 20, 2016 at 12:28
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'You can't get out of doing National Service' (as an example) means there's no way you can avoid doing it.– Edwin AshworthCommented Aug 20, 2016 at 14:16
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1 Answer
The wording you ask about appears to be a play on the idiomatic tough-guy expression
Nobody gets out of here alive.
...but it isn't a very good variant because it runs up against another common idiomatic expression:
What do you want to get out of X?
meaning "What benefit do you hope to gain from X?" A fuller (and clearer) wording of the expression that you ask about would be along the lines of
Nobody gets out of life alive, anyway.
meaning simply "Everyone dies eventually." It seems a bit odd to juxtapose that rather downbeat assessment of existence with the conclusion that we should therefore not take life too seriously.
answered Aug 20, 2016 at 20:13
