Last week I wrote a post musing about the questions we secretly ask ourselves. I said it might become a series.
It seems there are at least two of them, so apparently we’re calling it a series now. 😂
Last week’s question was Am I happy? Today, it’s Do I even know what I want anymore?
It’s an interesting question, particularly if the answer doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Because it can be very tempting to make that mean something. Maybe I’ve lost my way. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me.
And before we know it, we’ve taken a simple “I don’t know” and turned it into a whole story in our heads.
Perhaps it starts young. Someone asks what we want to be when we grow up, and somewhere in answering, an assumption slips in with it, that we’re supposed to always know. That there’s a path, and knowing what we want is how we check we’re still on it, not quietly swerving away.
No wonder not knowing can feel like getting something wrong. And once it feels that way, it’s easy to make it mean something bigger still. Not just I don’t know what I want, but I’m not good at this. This is something I lack.
And yet. Ask the same person what they want for lunch, and the answer’s often instant. No story, no crisis, just an answer.
So maybe it’s not that you don’t know how to know. Perhaps it’s just that this particular question is asking something bigger.
But what if it doesn’t have to mean anything? What if sometimes we simply don’t know?
Perhaps things have changed. Maybe you’ve spent a long time noticing what everyone else needed, and not much time noticing what you did.
Or perhaps neither of those is quite it. There doesn’t have to be a reason.
I think we can sometimes be surprisingly quick to turn an unanswered question into a problem. As though if we don’t know what we want, we need to work out why, find the answer, and get ourselves back on track.
But what if we didn’t? What if we could simply notice that this is where we are right now?
Maybe there is something you already know, quietly, that hasn’t quite made itself into words yet. Perhaps there isn’t. Maybe the question will sit with you for a while.
And that’s OK. You don’t have to turn uncertainty into a problem that needs solving immediately.
You might just not know yet.
If you’d like to keep the conversation going,
I’d love to write to you.
Every couple of weeks, I’ll send you a letter with stories, observations and questions from my own life, shared in the hope they might spark something in yours.
When you join, I’ll also send you A Few Minutes. A short audio that’s simply an invitation to pause for a while and put everything down.
Kettle on. No rush.
Just between us
A quiet, thoughtful letter delivered every two weeks. Join today and receive “A Few Minutes”, a free 8½-minute guided audio to pause with. A small gift you don’t have to earn.
