# 129. Quest and Questions

What if the life you worked so hard to build isn't the life you want anymore?

Thud.

That's not the sort of question you ask lightly over your morning coffee. Once you've asked it, you can't un-ask it. Maybe nothing is particularly wrong. You built a career. Loved people. Made choices. Kept promises. Survived things you weren’t sure you could. Accomplished things you're proud of and accumulated a few things you're still trying to explain.

And yet. A question has started rattling around in there.

Is this still what I want?

I think questions like that become more unsettling in our third chapters because we were told that we’re supposed to have figured things out by now.

We spent much of our younger lives being rewarded for answers. What's the right answer on the test? What are you going to be when you grow up? What's the next career move? Are you getting married? Are you having children? What's the five-year plan?

We answered. And answered. And answered.

Then somewhere along the way, life shifted. The career changed. The relationship changed. The body changed. People leave. Priorities shift. And that little question comes knocking: Now what?

I'm increasingly suspicious of people who claim to have that one figured out. I'm also increasingly suspicious of my own desire to figure it out. Maybe it's doing exactly what a good question is supposed to do: disturbing something that has become too settled. That is both uncomfortable and exhilarating.

What if instead of asking, Why did this happen to me? We ask, What does this make possible?

What if Who am I supposed to be? Becomes Who am I becoming?

What if Is it too late? Becomes Too late for what?

Questions like these give us movement. They loosen our grip on old answers that may have been perfectly good once, but don't fit the women we've become. Anyway, we don't have to know. We can get curious. Change our minds. Try something. Abandon it. Ask another question.

At this age, wisdom isn't having more answers. Perhaps it’s about being brave enough to ask better questions.

After all, there's no quest without questions.

That, in fact, is why I created Where Wisdom Meets Wonder. I needed a way to get some of those questions out of my head and onto paper—to look at what I value now, what I want more of, what I might be ready to leave behind, and what I still want to explore.

It's not an answer book. It's a place to ask better questions.

So I'll leave you with one: What's the question you haven't quite dared to ask yourself yet?

An earlier version of this idea appeared here more than two years ago. Apparently, I still have questions.