Obsessing over life's big questions stopped me from living

Live your way into the answers, instead

I used to be obsessed with the Big Questions. What’s the meaning of life? What’s my purpose? What’s it all for?

Screw the mid-life crisis. Back then, I had a quarter-life crisis every other week.

I mean, they’re important questions. The questions. At some point we realize that our lives are finite and unique–that we only have one chance and we don’t want to screw it up by wasting it. Who doesn’t want a framework to put their life into? Who doesn’t want a guarantee that at the end of the road, we’ll be able to look back and say, Yes, I did it right. My life had meaning. I became who I was meant to be.

As a teen I was constantly journaling, constantly musing. I read Dostoevsky and Henry David Thoreau and the other “greats” in my spare time (yep, you read that right–outside of school work). The closer I got to turning 18, the closer I was to tattooing on my forearm Did you live? in ancient Roman typeface–so I could hold my future old self accountable. (Thank god I didn’t.)

In college, sometimes I’d skip classes and wander around campus instead, going over the Big Questions in my head. In those moments, I just didn’t see the point of going to another lecture about a 19th century poet or a physics formula–that was too small. Those were just details–I wanted the blueprint. I needed the big picture, the framework, the outline, the skeleton to put all these events and days into. I knew that this class led to a grade; I knew that lunch with this friend led to a laugh; I knew that putting my things away as soon as I was done with them led to a clean room. But what did grades and laughter and clean rooms really amount to?

I felt like the days were passing by, the grains of sand in the hourglass slowly piling up, and I needed to find out the meaning of my life so that I could live that. I needed to figure out the purpose of my life so that I could pursue that.

And so I thought. And thought. And thought. I’d spend hours lost in contemplation, steeped in it like a bag of tea forgotten in its cup, oversaturating the flavor. The thinking itself felt tied to the grander scheme of things, because it would lead to my Purpose and Meaning. What career should I pursue? What’s my passion? What actually matters most—family, friends, community, the world? Should I focus on helping others or on developing myself first? Do I crave adventure or stability? Both? How much of each?

I could spend an entire afternoon spiraling through these questions, wandering around until the sun went down.

It continued into my 20s. Whenever the Big Questions popped into my head again, I’d drop everything, pause plans, retreat from daily living. I carved out space and time to think, because in the end, this question was the priority. This question was the root of everything. And once I could figure it out, my life would have direction. Things would fall into place. Everything would have deeper meaning.

I’m not sure when my perspective began to shift. Maybe it happened gradually as the frustration built up over the years. When I looked back on all those hours spent ruminating and still felt so far from cracking the Meaning of Life. Occasionally, I’d land on what felt like an answer—a purpose, a calling, a sense of meaning—but almost immediately, I’d start to doubt it. Had I actually discovered something, or just “logicked” my way into it? Had I considered every option, every angle, every possible life I could live?

And that was the problem: there were too many variables. The meaning of life seemed to be tangled in a web of shifting factors—health and exercise, family and friendship, self-improvement and career, money and ambition, spirituality and community, service and creativity. Each one seemed vital, yet their importance kept changing depending on where I was in life—or even how I felt that day. What seemed essential one week would fade into the background the next. The balance was constantly moving, impossible to pin down.

To be fair, I did have little insights here and there—small realizations that nudged my life in better directions—and I am grateful for those. But when it came to the Big Answers–the meaning of life, the all-consuming purpose–I wasn’t much closer. And I began to notice something else: that whenever I let the Big Questions take over, everything else suffered. Chores, tasks, responsibilities, relationships–they all fell to the wayside, because they felt small and inconsequential in comparison. How could I care about doing laundry or returning a call when I was trying to wrestle the Meaning of Existence into a tidy little theory I could tape to the wall and live by?

It wasn’t just that I was skipping out on daily life by obsessing over these questions—I wasn’t even doing anything concrete with the Big Questions. All that time I spent thinking–circling around and around–I wasn’t spending on living. I felt frustratingly inactive, and I was becoming increasingly aware that living life was an action. Sometimes the irony would hit me square in the face, like how I’d ponder over the importance of relationships while letting a bunch of messages from friends and family go unanswered.

It all came to a head when the universe–or at least the flea market–seemed to align just so. I was swirling through my usual thoughts about the Big Questions when my eyes landed on a fridge magnet. (Hey, we can’t all have big, dramatic, revelatory moments. Sometimes your epiphanies arrive cheap and magnetic.)

It’s a famous quote from an Austrian poet/novelist, and it’s embodied how I think about the Big Questions ever since then.

[…] have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and [...] try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. —Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

Live your way into the answer.

Trying something—and getting it wrong—is better than sitting in thought, waiting for the perfect plan.

Life is about trial and error. You can’t expect to learn about yourself or the world without engaging with it, experimenting with it, trying it, tasting it, living it.

So you find out that marriage didn’t work for you. So you find out that that job didn’t fulfill you like you thought it would.

You’ll make wrong choices. But you’ll make right ones, too. And the wrong ones are just right ones turned upside down. You learn from them, and you make better ones later on.

Or you accept the choices you’ve made, and you find meaning in them–or build meaning in other areas of your life to support the ones that are lacking.

Maybe meaning isn’t something you discover once and for all—it’s something you build, piece by piece. And sometimes it changes a bit. Sometimes it changes a lot.

If you don’t know where to start, start by focusing on the smaller questions instead of the bigger ones. Start looking at the day instead of the lifetime. Ask yourself, What can I do today, right now, tomorrow, this weekend, this morning, to make me feel more fulfilled? Happier? Better?

Because the truth is, you can think about the Big Questions forever. These are the doors that humans have been knocking on for centuries. They’re not meant to open in an afternoon, or a day, or even in twenty years of living. Thinking about the purpose and meaning of life can be good and worthy, but ironically, it can also keep you from living.

I still have the Big Questions with me. They haven’t disappeared, but they’re no longer front and center. They’re like companions I carry with me. Like old friends that I get in touch with every once in a while to catch up with. I think about them when I’m cooking dinner, or when I’m walking home in the dark, or when I’m laughing with friends. But the world–life–no longer grinds to a halt when I think about them.

Because maybe the only way to truly answer the Big Questions is not by thinking them to death, but by living them into being. You can’t think your way to understanding life—you have to live your way there.

And go to flea markets and buy magnets. It might just change your life.

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Thank you so much for reading. Honestly.

If this post meant something to you, I’d love to share a drink with you! Whether that be a coffee, a matcha, sparkling water or a pint—I’ll have what you’re having. 😉🧡 (And let me know in the comment what you “got” me!) You can do that here.

For those who want to get closer, who know that they want to commit to getting a drink together every month—you can do that here. I’m only opening up the chat to these friends, these regulars, where we can have closer conversations about our lives, progress, and updates! Also, at this table of regulars I’ll be sharing posts that are a little more personal, a little more vulnerable, and that have taken me longer to write. These are the kinds of stories I don’t want to share with just anybody—only with the ones who know they want to be here. Who are ready to get closer, and even open up themselves—because I want to get to know you, too. I hope to see you there.

—Reeze