I was recently talking to a peer about his life. We were supposed to meet with two other job-seekers in our weekly job-search support group, but Caitlin and Dave (names changed) couldn’t make it that afternoon, so it was just Adam and me, and the conversation took many twists and turns. In these calls we usually rank our ‘energy levels’ on a scale from 1, lowest, to 5 as the highest. For context, I’d had a rejuvenating morning, but by the afternoon of our call, my body had gone through a customary dip in energy. But through our joint efforts, Adam and I were able to power each other through the 2 PM slump. I learned so much more about the peer whom I had met weekly for several months up until that point, walking away with even greater appreciation than I already had for the proactive, humble qualities he’d already demonstrated all those months. Knowing that I’d suffered a personal setback just the previous week, Adam shared some of the salient moments of uncertainty and ambiguity he’d encountered in his fifty-some-odd years of life, touching on his time living abroad, his marriage, previous bosses and companies, the evolution of his hobbies–the major features of what I knew to constitute Adam’s background but with more context, enabling me to see the connections between seemingly disparate parts I’d heard about at different group meetings. Specifically, he recalled distinct chapters of upheaval in his life, recalling them with inspiring clarity, humility and acceptance rather than spouting some hindsight-laden platitude about things being bound to get better. His recollections have since mingled in the special brine inspired by the book I’m currently reading: The Power of Now, a slim 21st century primer on mindfulness that, thanks to Oprah’s illustrious Book Club, brought Eckhart Tolle to the leading edge of a sensational pop psychology self-help resurgence about 20 years ago, visited by me now for the first time per a convincing self-help book recommendation graphic by efficiency expert Ali Abdaal of Youtube fame. Tolle’s insistent voice, burned into the back of my head, has me take a step back before I start investing emotionally into the hypothetical future–and the past, but that’s not the topic of this post–from a store of emotion, faith, attention, positivity, all that good stuff, that, he argues, has greater ROI when we reserve it for the present. He doesn’t draw that exact metaphor, per se, but it’s one I find effective in conveying the opportunity cost of fixating on what has yet to happen: a mindset with which I have ample experience.

Upon moving back to my home state last year (beginning of 2025) with a renewed understanding of therapy and change, I identified my personal therapeutic goal as to gain a sense of stability through my living situation, social circle, hobbies, professional work and long-term goals. Accustomed to a life of upheaval, I felt a natural need for constancy–whether in the company I keep, the ways I engage my body and brain, or the environments I frequent–and the sense of grounding, purpose and belonging that would bring. I wanted to test whether I could bloom where I was planted. Now, at the close of that therapy journey of nearly two years, on the cusp of yet another move, albeit within the same county, I can say I stayed true to that intention. I’ve made a wonderful new group of friends, spent quality time with family, increased my involvement with the community, adopted functional habits and routines custom to my environment, and taken care to continually nurture my spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health. My life still appears far from ‘settled,’ by conventional markers, but I wasn’t expecting to have everything in place so much as to develop a stronger inner compass and sense of momentum toward building the structures of constancy I desire, through both my actions and the story I tell about my journey through some pithy key-phrase to tie it all together, such as ‘seeking my next career move’ and ‘finding my people’…as a ‘curious, contemplative thirty-something woman caught between managing conventional expectations and answering the call of the unknown.’

Still, naming that goal risked giving power to what was missing–the milestones I needed to achieve, the fully decorated, lived-in home that wasn’t yet a reality. What I often saw as the ‘problem’ in my life–the resounding lack of ‘settledness’ in my living situation, social life, career and other routines–was just a cover for my fear of regret, especially after investing time, energy and heart–into things that don’t work out or leave me feeling trapped. But hearing Adam recap some of the major transitional seasons in his life, free of any intent to garner sympathy–lightened the discomfort that comes with summarizing broad chapters of life marked by ambiguity and exploration. I’m so grateful for moments like these when I get a glimpse of the whole person–some facts, some feelings, all relevant to our relationship and imbued with the meaning-making I treasure. Too seldom do I feel connected to the broader narrative of my friends’ and family’s lives. The customary “How are you?” or “How was [x thing you did]?” rarely leads to an intriguing interaction. I don’t feel ‘let in’ to the needs, desires, anxieties of most people I encounter every day–or the bigger meaning of their lives. Thus, I’m grateful for the opportunities I get to lead with meaning-seeking in my regular interactions, even through something as practical as a job-search council.

For my job-search council meetings, one ice-breaker question that excited me a few months ago was ‘What’s the first thing you’ll do when you land your next job?’ But upon realizing the outcomes-dependent nature of the question, I adapted it to ask, drawing from the ‘Miracle Question’ at the core of the solutions-focused tradition of therapy, ‘Imagine all your problems got solved overnight. You wake up in the morning and, magically, everything you wanted came true. What’s the first thing you notice that tells you you achieved your goal?’ While this question also centers outcomes, the answer can also reveal the illusory nature of our expectations of a shift in life circumstances changing our experience of life on a fundamental level. Ultimately, I ask it, along with the related hypothetical of ‘”‘If I had it all figured out,’ because it encourages an examination of core values, which, even if you don’t need self-help book to appreciate, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People does a great job explaining the how, what, where and why of developing and espousing a personal mission–an undeniable source of constancy in itself, with value far beyond that of any external marker of a ‘settled’ life. My therapy goal certainly highlighted a desire to commit–to end the incessant exploration, to quiet the mind, and deal with the consequences of picking a lane–to focus on the matters of the moment. Even if decisions have been hard to make, and values sometimes elusive, and influences conflicting, what matters is the constancy from within–committing to one’s personal mission irrespective of how the world may respond at any given moment. It’s a fine balance of openness and tenacity, calling for the willingness to suspend disbelief, to withhold prejudgement of outcomes, in order to stay true to what matters, which may look different for different people in the nitty gritty, but generally, I suspect, rests in a deep faith in the fundamental worth of oneself and others.

Reuniting with my oldest friends in Seattle for a prix-fixe Vietnamese dinner to celebrate that culture’s new year in late February, I chose ‘joy,’ or ‘nien vu’ in Vietnamese, to be my motto of the forthcoming year, from a list of inspirational words that the live artist, a Vietnamese calligrapher, would make a custom banner of to present each guest at the end of the night. I chose ‘nien vu’ to honor what we all probably know, intellectually, matters, which is one’s outlook on life rather than the look of one’s life. By choosing joy, I was acknowledging that no matter how settled my life appeared on the surface, joy is always available to harness from within, with only my beliefs to hold it back.

How is it going, you might ask, almost 6 months into my involvement with the Never Search Alone online community? I’d respond the same way I offer my ‘energy level’ of the week–to say that it ebbs and flows. As with any routine, I encounter lulls and spikes: times when I question the point of my efforts, and times when I feel its nourishment on a fundamental level, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be doing.