Live the Questions Now!

With so much uncertainty in the world today I've been thinking a lot about something Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to his younger poet protégé: "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 answer.

"Live the questions now." That's such counter-intuitive advice. Our human minds and egos don't like questions. We feel uncomfortable and disoriented in the midst of mystery. But think about it. Isn't life itself a mystery? Isn't love? Or passion? Or grief? Or any of the deep realities that make us human? And what questions, beyond the most superficial, have you ever really known the "answer" to?

Mystery drives us to the depths. The moment one layer of mystery is resolved, it opens up the next, and the next, and the next. To close ourselves off from mystery by being satisfied with superficial answers is to cease to grow, to cease to mature, to close our lives off from authenticity and fruitfulness.

So in coaching, we may discover answers to some problems, or strategies for dealing with them. And that's valuable! But it's not the greatest treasure. But beyond answers and strategies, we seek to go deeper into the mystery, beauty and adventure of becoming. It's an adventure worth taking!