What Is This Moment Asking of You? (The End of My Search)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been on a search.

A search for meaning.

And after going round in circles, questioning everything, and trying to think my way to clarity, I’ve arrived at a surprised end point.

If you’ve been following along with my writing recently, I’ve been taking you on my own journey of feeling a bit lost in life. I’ve felt like I’ve been lacking a purpose, lacking a bit of meaning, and I wanted to really understand what that would look like to discover what’s meaningful for myself.

So I began to look for answers.

When Goals Stop Working

Up until this point, I’d been very goal driven.

I’ve always worked towards things and I’ve been quite good, I’d say, at motivating myself to pursue goals.

Then somewhat recently, maybe in the last 12 months in particular, the goals haven’t felt as exciting. I haven’t felt the pull, the drive, the excitement to achieve the goals. I’ve almost felt like I can imagine the goal being achieved and then thinking, so what? Nothing changes. You still don’t know what you’re doing. You still feel a bit lost.

And that’s been challenging.

So I decided to record a daily video to really understand my own mind and hopefully to share some insights and discoveries along the way.

What I didn’t realise is that talking to the camera every day has been therapeutic.

I say therapeutic in that it’s been a way for me to verbalise what was in my mind and to get it out of my head and into words. In that process, it’s really allowed me to see things a bit more clearly.

So I’ll explain where I got lost, where I felt I was struggling, and then I’ll share with you the big breakthrough I’ve had recently and where I think I’m going to go going forwards.

Lost in the Pursuit of Goals

I was starting to realise that there was no goal I could think of that excited me.

The way my mind was trying to solve this was to sit down, reflect and think of the path I need to align with. I was trying to think of what goal I want to achieve or where I want to arrive in the future so I can make sure the actions I’m taking now align.

I would imagine where I want to be 12 months from now. Then align the steps I’m taking now to lead me there.

Yet I was struggling to find a vision. I was struggling to find where exactly do I want to end up? What goal do I want to achieve?

Everything I thought of didn’t quite work.

So my mind thought, well, Adam, you just haven’t got a strong enough reason. You haven’t got a strong enough goal. Keep looking. Keep trying to find the goal. Keep trying to find the reason to get more out of yourself.

So I did.

I kept looking. I kept looking for different avenues to explore.

And everything just kept sending me back to a model of “do this to get that.”

By that I mean do the hard work to get to the outcome. Sacrifice the short term to get the long term. I’ve played those games my whole life.

And now I was feeling that I don’t want to sign up for another one right now.

As funny as that might sound, I don’t want to just jump straight back on the hamster wheel and into the next game.

The Spiral of Overthinking

As I was trying to think my way through this, the mind was trying to create some certainty around the future.

It’s like, well, Adam, if you do this, this can lead here.

And I was feeling a lot of resistance.

Resistance to those paths. Also feeling a disconnection with what I’m doing. Not fully engaged with what I’m doing in terms of career path, and maybe life path as well.

It was really sending me into a spiral.

A spiral that wasn’t leading anywhere.

You know when you ruminate and go around in circles and everything feels a bit daunting. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to this.

Especially in the world of AI that we’re going into. If you start thinking about AI too long and where it’s going to lead in the future, your head can just explode. Both thinking about what it’s going to do for yourself, but also what it’s going to do for the world and everyone you know.

It can be very scary and very overwhelming.

I felt like I was in this state of overthinking and overwhelm myself.

Maybe the Search Is Wrong

Last week I started to align myself with an idea of maybe the mind doesn’t have the answers.

I started to realise that maybe the search for meaning is all wrong.

Maybe the fact you’re looking for a clear direction means you’re looking for certainty. You’re looking for what’s right, what’s wrong, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do.

Maybe the search is wrong.

Maybe the whole pursuit isn’t the right one.

And I started to think that maybe it’s a lot simpler. Maybe the actual question I’ve been asking is the wrong starting point.

Questioned by Life

Life has a funny way of aligning sometimes.

On one of my morning walks, I was feeling that I had got to the end of my finding meaning search. I haven't arrived at a destination, I'd changed the very way I was going about searching.

Then I opened up a book called Inner Excellence and the first page I read had this quote from Viktor Frankl:

What a beautiful way to summarise what I was internalising.

We are being questioned by life in each moment.

A practical way to act on this is to ask, "what is this moment asking of me?". N

ot what am I trying to get from this moment. Not what I want to achieve or accomplish.

But what is the moment I'm in right now asking of me.

This is where I want to live my life.

Bringing my best effort to it and letting the next moment present itself.

From Self-Focused to Moment-Focused

For me, I was trying to look at what do I need to do to get to where I need to go.

Very self centred. Very me, me. All ego.

Whereas if you bring it to the moment, the moment is asking you a question.

Think about that.

This moment is asking you a question.

What’s this moment asking of me?

Every time, the moment is asking you to show up in some capacity.

For me, it’s asking me to show up fully. Step into the fear. Do the uncomfortable thing. Do the hard thing. Do the thing that’s in front of you, not the next thing.

Two Ways to Live

There are two lenses here.

The first lens is trying to find meaning. Imagine where I want to end up, the person I want to be, and the goals I want to achieve. Then think about the actions I need to take.

Create the vision. Reverse engineer the steps. Execute.

You see a lot of people succeed this way. Athletes are great at this. Every training session is part of a long-term outcome.

It works for certain people and certain goals.

The second lens is asking what the moment expects.

All you need to focus on is now.

Do what’s in front of you and the next step will appear.

Write today’s piece. Finish it. Publish it. The next step will be apparent.

For me, giving fully to the moment and letting the next moment open up just feels like the better way to live.

At least for this stage of my life.

The Mind Hates It

The only challenge with this is the mind hates it.

Because what you’re saying is, mind stop trying to solve the problems. I’m just going to live in the moment and let it happen.

The mind thinks this is reckless.

What happens if we lose it all? What happens if we haven’t got money? What if we lose our reputation? What happens if everything crumbles because we’re not paying attention?

Mind stuff.

But imagine living your life this way.

Be present for the moment you are in. Give it your best effort. Allow the next moment to unfold after.

Full engagement in this moment.

Then the next.

A Shift in How I Create

This is my conclusion.

I’ve gone from trying to figure out what would be meaningful, which for me was a mind game, to leaning into the question of what is this moment asking of me.

Live in that moment fully. Don’t judge it. Don’t try to make it what it’s not. Let the next moment unfold.

Clarity just seems to appear.

Not clarity as in the mind knows what’s next.

But clarity as in this feels like the right path.

One way I’m doing this is when I shoot Youtube videos. I have the raw idea in my head and I let it my thoughts flow freely. I could script everything. Make it nice and structured.

Yet it feels very rigid. Very performative.

Instead I’m allowing whatever comes up.

If I forget something I thought was important, it wasn’t important enough. I forgot it.

Whatever comes out unpolished, maybe not as tidy as it could be, feels more authentic to me.

This feels like what I want to be doing.

Letting the moment arise. Expressing what I want to express. Being okay with that.

Not performing.

But actually being here.

Where I’ve Arrived

I started this search trying to figure out what would make my life meaningful.

I’ve arrived somewhere simpler.

There is a moment in front of me.

It is asking something.

My job is to show up to it fully.

And then let the next moment appear.

For now at least, it feels like my search is complete.

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, I have put together a video series called Finding Meaning In Life which takes you through a deep dive into this topic as I share my discoveries day by day.

Adam