Letting Go of the Search for Answers

Humans have always wanted to know the answers to the big questions. 

What is the meaning of life? 

What is the meaning of my unique life? 

What is the nature of the universe; did it have a beginning and will it have an end? 

But perhaps more than any other big question, we are obsessed with the question of what will happen after we die. So personal and so mandatory is our own death, that this question supercedes all others. 

This central question gave birth to religion and, preceding formalized religion, to the very concepts of spirit, afterlife and deities. God must have created this universe and my uniquely personal life. God must have a plan for all of life and thus for me. And my death, whenever and however it occurs, is part of some greater plan than I could ever understand. Our collective fear of death and the question of what follows are so powerful that more than 4 out of 5 humans alive today count themselves part of a religious denomination. 

And yet, despite our collective fatihs, how many of us can truly say we are at peace with the notion of our own death? And the deaths of all of our loved ones? And how many of us feel we have the tools to navigate our own death with grace, and to help facilitate the same for our  loved ones? Whether or not one has religious faith, very few of us can answer such questions positively and to our own satisfaction. The reality of our bodily cessation is so potent that faith, belief and knowledge can only provide so much comfort for many of us as the big question - what happens after death - cannot truly be answered while we live. We do not know, in our core, what comes after death. 

The goal of my work as a death coach is not to provide an alternative answer, for I have none. If there was a knowable answer to the big questions, such as “42” in Douglas Adams’ book A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I possessed this knowledge, I would happily share it with all who would listen. But like everyone else, I don’t have the answer. Rather, the goal of my work is to assist others in letting go of the quest for this unknowable answer, and in becoming more and more at peace with the uncertainty and the very unknowability of the answer. 

This acceptance of not knowing is not born from pessimism or nihilism. It is not giving up. It is born from a radical self honesty and a desire to embrace what we can and cannot know, not what we hope or desire. It is a fundamental shift in the equation. 

So long as we believe that the question can be answered, we feel anxious at the lack of an answer that satisfies us. Often we turn to others, hoping and praying that they know the answer and will share it with us. Some of these are religious prophets and clerics. Some are mystics and gurus. Some are philosophers and new age teachers. Some are snake oil salesmen and con men. And all gain their power from offering an answer to the unknowable. 

If you, the reader of these words, can say with truth to yourself that you have found an answer that leaves you at peace to your satisfaction with the inevitability of your own death, and the death of all those you love, and of our planet, and our very universe, then regardless of what that answer is, or its source, I wish you nothing but continued peace on your journey. If, however, like me, you feel that all the answers never tell the whole story, never fully satisfy the need to know, never quench all doubt, then I propose not that the search be redoubled, not that deeper or alternative faith is required, but rather an examination of what happens if we let go of the question altogether. 

What happens if we accept that the big questions cannot be answered? What happens if we allow this life, this unique gift of life, filled with wonder and challenge and joy and sorrow and so much more, to be enough on its own terms, without the need for explanation or greater answers? What happens if we embrace not the resolution of the question, but its very unknowability? 

What happens if we change the equation? 

One day, I will die. One day, you will die. In that moment, if there is truth to be known, answers to be found, we will not only know it, we will be it. It will be us. Death is the great unveiling. Until then, I offer that we can let go of the search, let go of the anxiety of the unknown, and be in this life.