2. Did I quit the rat race because it’s bad, or just because I couldn’t hack it? Did I just cop out? 3. Is this as good as it gets? Perhaps I was better off when I was following orders and ignorant of the possibilities. It was easier at least. 4. Am Treally successful or just kidding myself? 5. Have I lowered my standards to make myself a winner? Are my friends, who are now making twice as much as three years ago, really on the right track? 6. Why am I not happy? I can do anything and I’m still not happy. Do I even deserve it? Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-as-success mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with. Even so, there is a more profound observation to be made. These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100% alive and undistracted—in the zone. Chances are that it was when you were completely focused in the moment on something external: someone or something else. Sports and sex are two great examples. Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,®! these doubts disappear. In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable that the “big” questions will creep in. There is pressure from pseudo-philosophers everywhere to cast aside the impertinent and answer the eternal. Two popular examples are “What is the meaning of life?” and “What is the point of it all?” There are many more, ranging from the introspective to the ontological, but I have one answer for almost all of them—I don’t answer them at all. I’m no nihilist. In fact, ?ve spent more than a decade investigating the mind and concept of meaning, a quest that has taken me from the neuroscience laboratories of top universities to the halls of religious instituti