I dedicate this to a friend who is going through a major turning point in his life right now. He may not know this, but he has helped me to face my own questions in the same way he thought I helped him confront his.

His recent decisions, although not the happiest of decisions in anyone’s life, is something that he should be proud of. It is a decision that took courage and self-awareness. It is a decision that called for being true to oneself. It is a decision that serves as a wake-up call to me – to face the mirror and ask the hard questions applicable to my own life.

I write my thoughts in order for me to see them more objectively, process them in a more organized way. I want to see it ‘in front of me’. I could have kept the thoughts in a journal, but I decided instead to write them and share them publicly.

There could be someone, somewhere who is going through the same situation or process of evaluation. And by sharing my thoughts publicly, it could inspire, enlighten or just simply make the next person feel that he/she is not alone.

To my friend, as you go through this turning point in your life, just know that someone is thinking of you, cares what happens to you, and in the more encompassing sense of the word – loves you in a way only a friend could.
You are not alone.

“We sometimes pretend not to understand the question
to avoid the responsibility of making a choice and a decision.”
—Donna R.

When we are uncomfortable enough in life, we will begin to ask questions in an attempt to relieve ourselves of our misery. We will do this regardless of how frightened we are of asking the questions or hearing the answers. We will question because we can’t NOT question anymore. We will question not simply because we want to, but because we NEED to.

How did I get here? This is one question most of us, including myself, would be very scared to find the answers to. We think we want the answers,, but what we are mostly afraid of is the process of finding those answers.

Do you remember how as kid we used to ask questions like:

Why is the sky blue? Why do airplanes fly? Why does my shirt shrink?

We ask questions because as humans we have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, for answers. As we mature, we tend to avoid asking too many questions that we do not have ready answers for.

Why?

As travelers on life’s path we are defined by both the questions we ask ourselves and the ones we avoid asking.

It is a long process to get to the point when we accept that times of questioning are not moments of weakness, nor are they moments of failure. In truth, they are moments of clarity, of wakefulness, when our quest for wholeness demands that we live a more conscious, more authentic life.

How we deal with these crucial moments of self-inquiry determines the outcome of our life’s journey.

We have all gone through the process of denial at some point in our lives. We deny accepting that we were not the best in our jobs. We deny that sometimes our choices of lovers were ready fucked-up. We deny that there were times when the lovers in bed with us were not really satisfied. As men, we deny accepting the obvious fact that the woman was faking her orgasm. Or as women, we even deny to ourselves that we are faking it. We deny ourselves the happiness we want by convincing ourselves that we are happy and contented. We deny ourselves many things.

Denial is no easy task. It takes great courage NOT to freeze up in the face of fear, to allow these difficult questions and painful realities to pierce our own illusions, to shake up our picture of what we want our life to appear and confront reality as it really is.

True personal transformation can only happen when we are ready. It requires great acts of courage: the courage to ask ourselves the difficult questions that seem, at first to have no answers; the courage to hold these questions firmly in our awareness while they burn away our illusions, our sense of comfort, and sometimes our sense of self.

Is this really what I wanted to be doing?
Is this where and how I want to live?
Is this who I really am?
Knowing who I want to be, am I with the right person I should be with?

Most of us are more comfortable with the answers than with questions, much more at ease with certainties than with doubt. When we feel that the questions in front of us have no easy answers, we choose to turn away our attention and ignore the questions that needed to be asked.

How did I get here?

By “here”, meaning where my life is now.

Just because you may not yet understand where that somewhere is does not mean you are in the wrong place, or off course. To arrive at a place we don’t recognize is indeed a destination in life, one of the many destinations that we have to go to.

Asking the hard questions is not just a search for answers –but a search for truth – truth in who we are, what is important to us, where we want to go, who we want to be with. We are afraid to find the answers because we avoid choosing the ‘wrong answer. There are no right or wrong answers here.

We just need to search for the TRUTH in order to be free. We need to trust ourselves that by digging deeper, we will find clarity and awakening.

Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart.
And try to love the questions themselves.
Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given
For you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now,
And perhaps without knowing it
You will live along, someday into the answers
– Rainer Maria Rilke