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ANNOTATION:
This is all in the definition of life
This is an unsatisfactory answer because it is entirely in your definition of life. And you're using a definition that is too broad. Consequently, your answer could also apply to the question "What is the purpose of everything ?", on the base of your accepted theories. Let me try to narrow the base definitions so the answer be more "natural". When we ask this question, first, we usually think of "life" as our own life which we know to exists by direct perception. We are indeed asking the following question : "Why am I conscious ?", because however your life goes, the only thing that makes it your life is the fact that your are conscious of it. We are certainly asking this question more often when we are in distress, but what really matters is the fact that we are living the nightmare, not the actual plot. Also, we must consider that we are looking for an answer good for all humans, and you don't have to think about a particular moment of life to ask this question. Now, what do we mean by "meaning" ? According to the above mentionned definition of "life", its meaning cannot be in the realm of matter. Think about it : whatever goes on IS your life, so how could some special change (like an increase of fitness) be the purpose, end or meaning of your life and your life itself at the same time ? We can only say that there is nothing else but life that matters to us so life cannot have an external meaning. So how do we resolve the question ? If we choose to consider only the observation of life (not its direct perception), we can say that its meaning is the preservation of itself, which can be achieved by a good fitness. Observing the whole life, we don't have the choice but to consider the phenomenon of self-awareness, but this too is a way of increasing fitness. But I don't want to answer for others, its my life that matters. So I cannot take it as an object. And the question is inconsistent if we don't do that. So why are we asking ? I think this is an habit of language : everything in the world as effects that can be taken to "mean" something, but this is all relative to us, so what could I mean to myself ? Its like measuring everything against a reference and then trying to measure this reference agaisnt itself, the result is..."meaningless".
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