Living the Questions

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet

This quote is discussed in the Not So Big Life (as well as Sarah’s Living the Questions podcast) and I have seen it a couple of other places as well, so I felt like I should share it here:

This ties into something that I have become more aware of over the past couple of years…how quickly I jump to try to answer the questions (or solve the problem) when sitting with something and letting the answer come to you is much more effective (and less anxiety-producing). When I sit with something and let the answer reveal itself, I am more comfortable with the result (and usually learn something more about myself in the process).

Our society values “do-ers” and quick thinkers and people who can put out fires. But always having to have the answer can be exhausting (as well as daunting).

I need to hear this message…to know that it is ok (even good) to not know the answer. Because where is the learning if you know everything? Not to mention, it kind of takes the urgency out of many things, which, if you are like me where everything in life starts looking like a fire to be put out, is a good thing.