In my experience, contemplating the answers to these questions sharpens our thinking and can give us a deeper understanding of ourselves and life in general.

50 Life Questions With No Easy Answers

1. Who am I?

2. Is there a God? (If yes, what is God?)

3. What happened at the beginning of the universe?

4. What is the meaning of life?

5. What is the purpose of my existence?

6. What is consciousness?

7. What is love?

8. What is right and wrong?

9. Can world peace ever be achieved?

10. Will poverty ever end?

11. How can I be happy?

12. How can I make someone else happy?

13. What is the nature of reality?

14. Why do I experience pain and suffering?

15. What is the proper role of government?

16. Where does creativity come from?

17. Would you break the law to save a loved one?

18. What is the difference between living and existing?

19. What would your final words be?

20. Is it possible to achieve your dreams?

21. What happens after we die?

22. What is your greatest fear ever?

23. Who has inspired you the most in your life?

24. What are your top 5 personal values?

25. What is true freedom? Does it exist?

26. What would you not give up for $1,000,000 in cash?

27. How do you define success?

28. What is the ideal society?

29. How much money per month is enough for you to live comfortably?

30. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

31. Where do you want to be in 20, 30, or 50 years?

32. What is the biggest obstacle that stands in your way right now?

33. What was the most defining moment in your life over the past year?

34. How do you want to be remembered after you die?

35. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

36. When is silence better than words?

37. What is the first thought you have in the morning and the last thought you have at night?

38. Are there aspects of life that are beyond our perception and understanding?

39. Will machines ever become conscious?

40. Will we one day live on the moon or another planet?

41. Do extraterrestrial lifeforms exist?

42. What’s the next evolution of humans?

43. Will humans ever become extinct?

44. Is there such a thing as absolute truth?

45. Do some animals believe in a God or supernatural being?

46. How much of our decision-making is based on free will?

47. How would I perceive the world if I only had one sense?

48. How would life be different if you were born the opposite gender?

49. How would life be different if you were born in a different country?

50. If you could transport to any place during any period of time, where and when would it be?

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Image Credit: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Some like to blame corporations and mass advertising for our consumer culture, but I also believe it is partly our fault for accepting the lies that are constantly fed to us. Society, as a whole, seems like a very gullible bunch. Like savaged wolves we still like to travel in packs, always voting Republican or Democrat, always turning on our favorite TV shows, and constantly investing our time and effort into the same old patterns of thought.

Especially in this age of information, our minds are always being filled – like a sponge – yet at the end of the day we rarely if ever take the time to reflect, contemplate, and introspect on what ideas we should keep and what ideas we should throw away. We have become programmed by a culture filled with deception. It is not about who holds the truth, but who is the best persuader.

Be A Healthy Skeptic
Looking through our list of cognitive biases, it is hard not to be alarmed at all the different ways one can be duped. A big part of critical thinking is to be aware of these biases, another part is to always be what I call a healthy skeptic. By this I mean we should always leave room for doubt and always have the flexibility to change our views in the face of new information.

No kind of dogma, whether through religious authority or political consensus, should be held blindly as a truth – unless it stands to our own reason. People can certainly suggest ideas to us, but it is only through each individual’s critical thinking (or lack of) which determines if we accept an idea or not.

But even our own faculty of reason can be faulty. No individual is perfect or has all the information in the world; as the philosopher and scientist Alfred Korzybski points out, the map is never the territory, if it were it would have to be the same as the ground it covers. Since we are beings that can acknowledge our own ignorance, we must also include a healthy dose of skepticism in whatever it is we choose to believe regarding life. If we choose not to, we will surely find ourselves in the same cycles of behaviors and outcomes, and therefore never progress.

The Function Of Beliefs
A belief is confidence in the truth or existence of something without proof. For example, one can believe that “everyone is a good person at heart despite their actions,” but that is not a claim that can be properly falsified or proven (and therefore it is not a matter of science according to the philosopher Karl Popper). A belief is true only so far as it permeates each individual’s perspective. It is high-chunked information based on our everyday experience.

So despite beliefs inherit non-truthfulness in the face of scientific rigor, the human perspective necessitates that we hold beliefs about our existence in order to function effectively in our world.

Knowing that we all hold beliefs, we can begin understand why being a healthy skeptic is so important. A belief is only as important as it is a positive influence to our actions. And even our belief in what is a “positive influence” is a subject we should always debate (both in our heads and amongst friends).

So while I preach a philosophy of consistent skepticism, I also want to acknowledge that having beliefs, opinions, and presuppositions are important and necessary. They are information about how we view the world. The key is to be flexible with those views (and always willing to change in the face of new experience and evidence).

Reflection And Introspection
One important aspect to critical thinking is to contemplate why we believe the things we do. Why? is always the big question, and the more we ask it and attempt to answer it, the more we are aware of our patterns of thinking and our false assumptions.

The deeper we dig into our inquiries the closer we come to answers of “I just don’t know.” Acknowledging this ignorance can become an amazing insight, because to know what you know and know what you don’t know – that is true knowledge.

Introspection is such a great tool because it allows us to re-track the steps of our experiences and take notice of things we may have took for granted the first time around.

As far as we know, humans have the greatest ability to reflect on their experiences, but they aren’t the only animals to exhibit these characteristics. Studies have shown that when lab rats are given a chance to experience downtime after going through a maze, they are likely to learn the maze quicker than other rats who are simply put through trial-after-trial.

Researchers theorize through brain scans (although they can’t know the mind of a rat for certain) that this downtime is spent replaying memories. They paid particular attention to the hippocampus, an important structure of the brain responsible for learning. Researchers think this act of replaying memories may be a general mechanism of learning, and perhaps it explains the memory-formation theories behind dreams (which too can be seen as another kind of introspection).

What This All Boils Down To
The message I want my readers to walk away with is that our minds are incredibly powerful tools, and it is important that we actively and consciously use it to our advantage. I believe that sometimes we take our ability to think for granted and in the process we forget how to separate a lot of bullshit from the truth.

No scientist, politician, relative, or movie star can use our brains for us. And when it comes down to how we think of our world we need to distinguish between what we are told from what we believe to be true through our own experience and reason.

But depression is a reaction to a particular event or narrative we play out in our life.

Like all events, depression can only be experienced moment-by-moment. It is always moving, it is always changing, and we experience different ups and downs, but we conceptualize it as one big glob of gloom.

But this train of moments is not without a conductor. It is not like a rainy cloud, which we have no control over, following us wherever we go. Instead, we play an active role in the process, and there are effective ways to limit our suffering and move past strong negative states.

Gratitude towards suffering

Why be grateful for suffering? It sounds a bit counter-intuitive – but perhaps that is part of why you have not been able to let go of these feelings for the past few weeks, months, or years. You have not yet fully accepted them, and you have not opened your eyes to the wisdom your mind and body are trying to reveal.

There is something to be grateful for in regards to all emotions, not just positive ones. If none of us ever experienced suffering or depression or loneliness from time-to-time, we would never know when we are moving in the wrong direction, and we would never adapt properly to changing circumstances. Negative emotions are a signal worth paying attention to.

What disturbs can motivate us towards growth

When I was depressed several years ago my life turned completely grey. I can swear that when I look back at those times there was no color in my world at all. There was no brightness or zest for life, just dullness and apathy. It was my first year in college. I had no friends around. And being the incredibly introverted person that I was, it was difficult to make contact with anyone. I became a recluse, and I didn’t like it.

Being roommate-less and alone, I only left the vacancy of my dorm for two reasons: classes and food.

At least during those times when I left my dorm I was around people. But the most discomforting moments were the times laying in my bed, unable to sleep, and thinking how much longer this could last before I would have to end my life. When the thought first entered my mind I was shocked. I never considered myself someone who could end their own existence. “Do I even have the guts to do it?” I would ask myself.

It is within these deep states of contemplation where a catalyst for change can often emerge. I knew I had only a few choices: run away forever, die, or mend things back up and strive for the excellence in life I had always dreamed of.

How to see depression

In a recent post, I described negative states as valuable signs telling us what areas of our life we need to pay greater attention to.

At least, that is how my depression worked for me. My depression felt everlasting – I felt powerless – but when I dived into those feelings, thoughts, and memories, and I explored them with full intent, I noticed that my mind was trying to tell me something. It was telling me, “something has to change, this current path is unsustainable and you need to find what dissatisfies you so that you can overcome it.”

Depression became the cocoon to my butterfly.

Thus I began to search for clues; I turned my depression into a journey. I first began reading the works of NLP co-founder Richard Bandler, and his predecessor, the American psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson. These two had a refreshing perspective on mind. They saw it as an entity that is designed to work for you, not against you.

They saw all emotions, thoughts, feelings, beliefs as tools. They could be learned, developed, and understood like anything else. They weren’t there to contribute to your demise – they were there to benefit you – they were solution-generating.

These incredible thinkers also had a way of reframing problems into solutions: Depression wasn’t just a result of a poor or pathetic life, it was the first step towards happiness. This way of seeing mental illness short-circuited my brain, and blew my mind wide open.

Mental health is the development of skills

We perceive time as always moving forward, and this is what we call life. Consequently, things are always changing – we study those things and call it knowledge, or science. As sentient beings, we have the capacity to learn about these things, to retain them in our memory, and apply them to our life to improve conditions.

We are the only beings we know of that can adapt to change in such complex ways. We have thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, perspectives, values, and convictions. These are all tools. We can consciously use them in the same way a carpenter uses a hammer and drill to help make a building.

Like other tools, they are human inventions and imperfect – but they can get us to newer places when we use them in the right context. This can be hard work. Maintaining mental health is not an easy or passive process anymore than building a muscle at the gym is an easy or passive process. Whether you are reading affirmations or taking 1mg of Clonazepam every day, there are no magic potions.

Pathologically, many illnesses originate due to a variety of different biological, psychological, and social factors. While we can’t change our genes, we can change how they are expressed by changing our habits, our environment, our culture, and our relationships. Our destiny is not set in stone, we usually have enough flexibility to make things work.

Non-duality

I want to now touch on a more philosophical concept. Please take a minute or two to reflect on the Yin-Yang:

It is an amazing illustration on the play of opposites in our daily life. The dynamics and evolution of our being.

Note that even on the side of dark there is a bit of light, and on the side of light there is a bit of dark. I think this very strongly alludes to the concept of nonduality that is so prevalent in eastern philosophy. The concept is meant to illustrate that while two things may seem distinct and separate, they are actually intimately connected.

Instead of thinking of depression as a separate entity to happiness, we should see them as part of a single continuum (again, this is actually one of the key concepts I go over in my short ebook).

You can apply this concept to an array of ideas in regards to mental health and well-being:

• Depression is the first step towards happiness.
• Ignorance is the first step towards knowledge.
• Confusion is the first step towards understanding.
• Anxiety is the first step towards confidence.
• Hate is the first step towards love.
• Darkness is the first step towards light.

If you are interested in knowing more about the philosophy of non-duality I recommend this article by Bhikkhu Bodhi from Access To Insight.

Everlasting change is not only our friend but our nature.

The ideas in this post aren’t anything terribly new, but they are always revelatory when they are first discovered by an individual mind. In truth, this way of framing happiness has been echoed throughout the ages, and it is still being reiterated today in various forms (Buddhist psychotherapy, NLP, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, etc.) It is also one of the most prevalent themes in this blog, and I will continue to write about it because I feel this is knowledge worth knowing.