How To Not Die By Thinking Too Much

I realized I had died when I was 28, but it was for the better.

The sweltering heat pushes down into the asphalt, and steam comes up: it had just rained ten minutes before. Petrichor fills my nostrils, the sun dances on my skin, and I'm absolutely miserable.

Miserable because I'm losing the fight no one else can see. The one which is fought inside my own head. Because for the last week, I can't solve this conundrum: what is the meaning of life?

Alright, alright. Pondering the question of all questions only for a week and not having an answer isn't strange at all, but here I was, spending this beautiful summer day in the darkness of thought.

People walk past the bench I'm sitting on, laughing and having a great time with their loved ones. How dare they? How can they be so happy when they haven't...

Wait, have they figured out the meaning of life? No, that can't be. Right?

I scratch my head, let out a sigh, and adjust my sunglasses. Right when I was about to dive back into the depths of despair, my phone vibrates.

It's one of my best friends. He seems very happy (the audacity!).

"Up for going to the lake?" he asks.

The lake? THE LAKE?! Doesn't he know I have better things to do than going to the lake?! I'm sitting here trying to solve the mystery of life, and he wants me to go for a swim. I'd rather be drowning in arguments than wasting my time.

But after some convincing from his side, I join the group and go to the stupid lake.

We take my car. We're joined by three more of our friends, so the Volkswagen is packed. As always, there's banter and good mood as we're swerving up the twisting mountain road.

I'm driving up the beautiful alpine vista of my home canton, some of my best friends at my side, going to take a dive in a pristine mountain lake to cool down from the sunny weather.

How annoying! Why did I join? I have to think! I must keep pondering the meaning of life!

We find a parking spot and head down the long road leading to the lake on foot. The road leads through a dense forest. The rustling of leaves serving as a harmony to the symphony of birdsong.

Maybe through work? Maybe conquering something? No, Napoleon died young and alone, that can't be it. Well, he also influenced the ages that followed his reign. Seems like a great sense of purpose to me. Also Alexander – I mean, he didn't really give a f... crap about what everybody else thought. He just did what he wanted to do.

Then it hits me: maybe, just maybe, the purpose of life is not pondering it, but actually just living.

Yes, I know. What a revelation! Very deep. I'm also not the first one to come to that conclusion. I feel high-fived by Wittgenstein, Camus, and de Montaigne simultaneously.

But for real now: life is given purpose by living it. Thinking about life too much keeps you from experiencing it. In a figurative sense, by not living life, you may as well be dead. According to one study, we already spend 46.9% of our waking hours thinking about something other than what we're doing in that moment. When you already tend to thinking about everything, it's like putting this natural inclination on steroids.

Full presence in the moment isn't just healthy for you, but also good for your surroundings. Nothing makes me check out of a conversation more than when the other person doesn't give me their full attention. I'm guilty of this, too. All of this is only exaggerated by technology. The bombardment of over-information we're subjected to each day makes it even more difficult to connect.

Some counterargument might be that by not thinking about the purpose of life, you live on autopilot, which is also not living. Being on autopilot is akin to sleepwalking, a state where you're neither fully asleep nor fully awake – or at least not fully aware. Some sort of limbo and, just like its namesake, it's close to being in a pre-state to hell. But it's healthy for the human brain to have downtime, or being on autopilot so to speak. It depends on how much the autopilot or our aware self is running the show. Thinking without knowing that you're thinking is itself a kind of autopilot.

It's not like I haven't experienced mini-deaths since I've reached this conclusion: every day I'm pulled back into distractions, external and internal. But the more we practice snapping back into the experience of life, the better we get at it. And more importantly: the better life gets. So every time you die by thinking too much, celebrate a glorious rebirth by fully embracing the moment, giving your life purpose by actually living it.