"The world just didn’t make sense anymore." I remember saying these words to myself somewhere between the first and the second wave of the pandemic when the novelty of being part of a global lockdown had subsided. The war cry of ‘we’re in this together’ just didn’t seem to cut it anymore. Covid made us realize that everything that was our reality – friends, work, travel, movies — were actually only sideshows. The main dish on the menu was just you and your family stuck together in your home for infinity. Suddenly the whole idea of life seemed pointless no matter how wealthy, how successful, how good looking or how rich you were. Everything that we had strived for to make our lives fulfilling now seemed like a giant joke.  

The world did come back on its axis eventually, but I never looked at my world in the same way again. I knew now how flimsy it was, how utterly easy to destroy and the existential dread only intensified. I struggled in therapy to acquire meaning all over again. “What was my life really about? What could I build that could not be taken away?” These were my burning questions in the early days of counselling. 

“What if you didn’t have to solve this anxiety?” My counsellor asked.

 “What if we began thinking that a little bit of existential anxiety is an inevitable part of life, that everyone will experience, so it isn’t something that we aim to eliminate?  What if we learn to embrace it and accept that it might be there to guide us to our purpose in life and help us reach our next stage of evolution?”

I woke up one morning again with the same thoughts that had plagued me — The world just didn’t make sense anymore, but now another thought weighed in — maybe it’s ok. That was the turning point. 

Each morning that I wake up alive, I experience existential anxiety, but at the same time deeper meaning too. These are actually two sides of the same coin. This for me is what it means to be fully human and completely alive.