We spend most of our time asking questions. But we hardly take a moment to reflect what kind of questions we are asking ourselves and how does asking these questions make us feel.
Influenced by our family, society, most of us asking small (ego driven) questions, like; How can I secure myself financially? Will I be able to find my dream job/partner/house? What am I going do with my life? Will I be known and loved?
These questions always haunted me. And they still do. And I always felt like the more I asked small questions like this, the more I got anxious, desperately seeking the answer. What I failed to realize was that these types of questions were suffocating me and making it harder to keep some room in my heart for the unimaginable, as Mary Oliver said.
In his book "On this journey we call our life; Living the questions", the Jungian analyst James Hollis talks about the questions we ask have the power to either grow or shrink our life. He says;
"The questions our life is organized around will either enlarge or diminish it. If in the second half of life our questions are; How can I be financially secure? How can I find someone to take care of me? How can I get people to like me? Then our lives will be diminished because as natural and understandable as these concerns are, they are too small for the agenda of the soul. As Jung said, we walk in "shoes too small"."
I agree with him. I found myself walking in those too small shoes - focusing on what the world asked of me, rather than what does my soul ask from me. Even when I started to ask larger questions, something in me still wanted certainty. I realized that the ego doesn't disappear just because the questions change. It morphs.
Focusing on what the soul asks of me, rather than giving in to the ego's constant search for security can be hard, especially if you're living in a city where a coffee is 10 dollars, the rents are hijacking most of your salary and if WW3 is happening. But despite all the noise out there, the soul patiently waits. It is yearning to be asked, "What wants to come into the world through me?
But the ego craves predictability. It wants the answers and hates the unknown. The ego wants to chase something, the perfect job, the perfect partner, a better car, a better house. And the chase never ends, because going inwards feels terrifying; hence it makes us to chase the answers from outside, unable to reach our answer, our potential.
Centuries ago, Rumi wrote;
"The beloved has expanded your heart with divine light
Yet you still seek answers from outside to feel right
You are a fathomless lake, yet you complain of drought incessantly
Why settle for a puddle when you have channel to the sea"
And yes, trying to not to seek answers is not easy work at all. It can make one feel lost, confused and anxious. It can trigger our deepest fear as human beings, the unknown. It is like finding yourself in the middle of the forest at night. It can be terrifying not seeing the light, the road ahead, and the only thing you can do is to trust the wisdom of the trees and let yourself discover.
So perhaps there is no cure, no magical formula which will save us from this crippling fear of unknown. To sit with the fear, with the uncomfortable feelings. And face the unknown.
In those moments where I feel like the unknown might suffocate me, I find solace and wisdom in the words of Reiner Maria Rilke, as he wrote this letter to his protege more than a century ago;
"I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
While living the questions is necessary for our growth, we need to make sure that we are asking the type of questions which will enlarge us and give us permission to be ourselves. Only when we are brave enough to ask large questions and dare to live a larger life, and stay with the unknown, then we may be living into the answer. Our answer, not anyone else's.