Live the Questions Now

"Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, one distant day live right into the answer." -Rilke

15 Important Questions for Myself:

1. What do you want in life? What’s the ideal, and what’s the reality? Is there a difference between these things, and if so what demarcates the boundary? Is it permeable?

2. Do you want to be with someone, or do you want to be alone? With someone means seeking to put another before yourself. Being alone means seeking yourself first, always. Of course you don’t have to be physically alone, but you have to decide if you are seeking a partnership in life, or simply a playmate. To answer this question, you must come to terms with the sacrifices that both possibilities entail.

3. Do you believe in purpose? If so, what does this mean for your life?

4. Do you believe in a higher power? If so, what does this mean for your life?

5. Do you really want to know more, or do you only want to appear to know more? Is relative knowledge enough for you? Selective knowledge? Are you committed to the pursuit of knowledge, regardless of the pain required to seek it? Do you know what kind of knowledge you are seeking? Can you identify a source, and pursue it?

6. If you want a teacher, where will you find one? You must stop waiting for this to surface. You must be willing to pay whatever cost is required. Or you must be willing to do this on your own.

7. What pleasures are transient in your life, and what are long-term sources of happiness?

8. What does health mean to you?

9. Who inspires you? Who drags you down? How can you recognize the negative influences and limit their impact?

10. Why don’t you feel comfortable accepting help?

11. How important is money, really?

12. Who do you trust? Why?

13. What does love mean to you? How can you best express it?

14. What are you afraid of?

15. What’s the next step?