‘What do we have here?’: How asking a simple question can change the way you think about your life

OThe only problem with trying to improve your life is that all too often the improvements you try make little sense your to live. This is especially evident when, for example, you try to emulate the extreme fitness routine of a high-profile influencer, ignoring the fact that he or she has a team of assistants who can free up all the time necessary. But following the advice of the average self-help book probably won’t work much better: no matter how wise or sincere the author, it’s extremely unlikely they’ve ever met you. Even when a plan for change seems to arise independently, from your own mind, it usually takes the form of a fantasy about the person you think you should be, or would like to be, and then try to squeeze that person into it. . In fact, you are – for a few days at least, until the battle becomes so frustrating that you give up in despair.

This is where the questions in this series come into their own. They are sought after by people with expertise in relationships, careers, health, home organization and more. But they can only be answered by the person who has by far the most detailed insight into what could really make a difference in your life: yourself.

The idea that questions may be more powerful tools for self-transformation than canned advice implies a specific view of human psychology: that we usually already know, somewhere deep inside, what we want or need. Perhaps that’s why books and articles that merely review the ingredients of a happy life – close relationships, time spent in nature, adequate physical exercise, etc. – so often seem to fall flat. No one really needs to be told that these things matter. The question is how to deal with the unique set of problems, character traits and personal circumstances that always prevent you from putting them into practice. And the problem is that the answers usually lie outside of consciousness: the conscious part of the mind, as Jungian therapist and writer James Hollis puts it, “is at best a thin wafer floating on an iridescent sea.” But the right question can bring that wisdom to the surface. Your answers to the following questions may surprise you; perhaps you will conclude that you not need to reduce the clutter at home, or that your marriage is healthier than you realized. The fact that it’s even possible to surprise yourself this way proves the point: there’s some wisdom you know, but you don’t necessarily know you know.

Sometimes a good question works by conjuring up a parallel universe, allowing you to temporarily change the rules by which you deal with reality. This is the value of classic self-help questions such as: “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 an object, or that you will succeed in abolishing all fear. It’s that by putting aside these buzzing fears for a moment, you start to hear other parts of yourself. If you discover that without financial worries you would write songs all day long, that’s crucial data – not because you’d have to give up the day job (that might be the case, although it probably isn’t), but because if you If you spend even 20 minutes a day writing songs, you’ll be amazed at how much more enriching life becomes.

A related type of question helps us avoid the misleading or superficial factors we often focus on when deciding how to spend our time. Faced with a major life choice, I have long relied on a question Hollis recommends: Is the path I walk, or the path I propose to follow, one that expands or diminishes me? It is often impossible to say which of the two options is the “best” or “right,” or even which is more likely to lead to happiness. But it is often surprisingly easy to know on an intuitive level what the path of “expansion” or psychological growth is. For different people, or at different stages of life, the same external action – for example, moving to another city or looking for a new job – can be an act of courage (which increases) or an act of avoidance (which decreases). Hollis’s question can help you determine what is true for you.

Ultimately, the purpose of any good question like this is to shift your attention away from escapist fantasies and back to the reality in front of you – which, after all, is the only place where real change could ever actually happen. I love Zen Buddhist and chef Edward Espé Brown’s favorite question to inspire deeper engagement with the world: “What do we have here?” This embodies the attitude of the person who opens the kitchen cupboard at 6pm on a weekday to see what he can rustle up for dinner. But it is an attitude that is worthwhile in almost all of life. Suppose you want to exercise more in 2025. Okay: what do we have here? A daily school run; a full work schedule; perhaps a long-standing and apparently persistent difficulty in getting up early. So maybe four 90-minute trips to the gym isn’t the place to start. What about a brisk walk, daily? It’s tempting to dismiss this as the easy option, but it isn’t. Wasting your time daydreaming about the perfect workout routine is the easy option. Facing the reality you find yourself in and asking what you could start doing today is bold and powerful.

Something similar applies when it comes to the desire that many of us feel to do more about the many crises that are sweeping the world. Doom-scrolling through global climate data or news about international conflicts could be done feeling like you’re doing something superficial, but we all know it doesn’t count. Instead, look at your reality, which extends far beyond your phone. What do we have here? A local group that could possibly use your volunteer work; an amount of money you can afford to donate; a flair for graphic design, or event organizing, or anything else that could be the start of something real.

In other words, the right question meets you where you are – and that includes not only your external environment, but also your internal moods and emotions. Conventional approaches to self-change often involve trying to suppress your feelings in order to stick to a plan at all costs. But how is that working out for you so far? In her essay Learning to Work, linguist and feminist scholar Virginia Valian describes how paralyzing anxiety prevented her from making any progress on her dissertation until she began to wonder how much time she really had. willingly to give it every day. Three hours? “The thought alone gave me an anxiety attack.” Two hours? A? Still impossible. As she went further and further down, she finally reached her point of readiness: 15 minutes. “A nice solid amount of time, an amount of time that I knew I could get through every day.” People laughed at how little it was, but all that mattered was that it worked, and that she could gradually increase it later: she was back in business. Honestly, even one minute of actual work a day, let alone fifteen, would have counted more than all the hypothetical hours she could have convinced herself she would have to work.

And the questions never have to end. In a famous letter from 1903, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke urges a protégé of his to “be patient with everything that is unresolved in your heart and try to like the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign language… The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, gradually, without noticing it, one day far away you will sympathize with the answer.” His words convey the impression that questioning is a way of life, complete in itself – and not just a preparatory step before finally mastering life. History knows no example of anyone ever finally discovering life, so it’s probably best not to risk your happiness trying to achieve it yourself. All you need is the next question, then the next, and the next…

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman is published by Bodley Head. To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at Guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.