HeyThe problem with trying to improve your life is that often, the improvements you’re trying to make have nothing to do with it for you life. This is especially evident when you seek, for example, to emulate the extreme fitness routine of a high-profile influencer, ignoring the fact that he or she has a team of assistants to free up all the time it requires. But following the advice of an ordinary self-help book is unlikely to work much better: no matter how wise or sincere its author, he is unlikely to have ever met you. Even when a plan for change seems to arise independently, from within your mind, it usually takes the form of a fantasy about the person you think you should be, or would like to be, and you then try to pressure that person. You actually are – for a few days, anyway, until the struggle becomes so frustrating that you give in to despair.
This is where the questions in this series come into their own. They are put forward by people with expertise in the areas of relationships, career, health, home organization, and more. But they can only be answered by the person who has the most detailed understanding of what can make a real difference in your life, and that is you.
The idea that questions may be more powerful tools for self-transformation than canned advice implies a specific insight into human psychology: that often, somewhere deep down, we already know what we want or need. Maybe that’s why books and articles that talk only about the components of a happy life — close relationships, time spent in nature, lots of physical movement, etc. — often seem like a failure. No one really needs to say that these things are important. The problem is how to deal with the unique set of hang-ups, personality traits, and personal circumstances that always seem to prevent you from putting them into action. The problem is that the answers usually lie outside awareness: the conscious part of the mind, says Jungian therapist and writer James Hollis, “is at best a thin foil floating on an iridescent sea.” But the right question can sweep that wisdom to the surface. Your answers to the following questions may surprise you; Maybe you should conclude that you are no You need to reduce clutter at home, or your marriage is healthier than you thought. The fact that it’s possible to surprise yourself in this way proves the point: there is some wisdom that you know, but you don’t necessarily know that you know.
Sometimes a good question works by conjuring up a parallel universe, allowing you to temporarily change the rules by which you approach reality. This is the value of classic self-help prompts like, “What would you do if money were no object?” Or “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” The point is not that money will never be a thing, or that you will succeed in eliminating all fears. It is by putting these nagging fears aside for a moment that you will be able to hear other parts of yourself. If you discover that, in the absence of financial concerns, you would write songs all day long, that’s important data – not because you have to give up your day job (this may be the case, although it probably isn’t) but because if you can dedicate even 20 minutes a day To write songs, and you’ll be amazed at how enriching life can be.
A relevant type of questioning helps us move beyond the misleading or superficial factors we tend to focus on when deciding how to spend our time. Faced with an important life choice, I have long relied on a question Hollis recommends: Is the path I am following, or the path I propose to take, one that expands me or diminishes me? It is often impossible to determine which option is “best” or “correct,” or even which is most likely to lead to happiness. But it is surprisingly easy to know, on an intuitive level, what the path to “expansion” or psychological growth is. For different people, or at different stages of life, the same external act—moving to another city, for example, or starting to look for a new job—can be an act of courage (an act of expansion) or an act of avoidance. (which is diminishing). Asking Hollis can help you decide what’s right for you.
Ultimately, the purpose of any good question like this is to redirect your attention away from fugitive illusions and back to the reality in front of you—the only place, after all, where real change can actually happen. I love Zen Buddhist and chef Edward Espy Brown’s favorite question to stimulate deeper engagement with the world: “What do we have here?” This embodies the situation of someone who opens the kitchen cupboard at 6pm on a weekday, to see what they can make for dinner. But it is a position worth taking for almost all of life. Let’s say you want to exercise more in 2025. OK: what do we have here? Daily school tour; Busy work schedule; Perhaps a long-term and intractable difficulty waking up early. So four 90-minute trips to the gym probably isn’t the place to start. What about a brisk walk every day? It’s tempting to dismiss this as an easy option, but it’s not. Wasting your time daydreaming about the perfect workout routine is the easy option. Facing your reality and asking what you can start doing today is bold and empowering.
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Something similar is true, by the way, when it comes to the desire many of us feel to do more to address the multiple crises sweeping the world. Scrolling through global climate data or news of international conflicts can lead to death feel Like doing something, superficially, but we all know it doesn’t matter. Instead, look into your reality, which extends far beyond your phone. What do we have here? There may be a local group that could benefit from your volunteer work; An amount of money you can donate; A flair for graphic design, event organizing, or anything else that might be the start of something real.
In other words, the right question meets you where you are – which includes not only your external surroundings, but also your internal moods and emotions. Traditional methods of self-change often involve trying to suppress how you feel, in order to stick to the plan at all costs. But how are things going for you so far? In her essay “Learning to Do,” linguist and feminist Virginia Valian describes her inability to make progress on her doctoral dissertation, thanks to crippling anxiety, until she began asking herself how much time she would really spend willing To give it every day. Three hours? “The very idea gave me an anxiety attack.” Two hours? one? Still impossible. Moving downward, she eventually reached her ready point: 15 minutes. “It was a nice, generous amount of time, an amount of time that I knew I could live with every day.” People laughed at how small it was, but all that mattered was that it worked, and that she was later able to gradually increase it: she was back in business again. Honestly, even one minute a day of actual work, let alone 15 minutes, would have counted more than all the hypothetical hours she probably told herself she should be working.
And the questions should never stop. In a famous letter written in 1903, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke urged one of his followers to “be patient with everything that is unresolved in your heart and try to solve it.” I like the questions themselves Like closed rooms, like books written in a very foreign language… the point is to live it all. He lives Questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live a day away from the answer. His words embody the sense that asking questions is a way of life, complete in itself – not just an initial step before you finally discover life. History has never recorded a case of anyone finally discovering life, so it’s best not to bet your happiness on achieving it yourself. All you need is the next question, and then the next, and the next…
Meditations for Humans: Four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what matters By Oliver Burkman Published by Bodley Head. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery fees may apply.