Existentialism In Everyday Life

We all hit moments that make us pause. We come to a crossroad that feels empty, a job that’s lost its spark, or a question that won’t go away: What’s the point of all this?

Existentialism isn’t just a philosophy topic, it’s a way of understanding these normative moments. It reminds us that life doesn’t hand out meaning. We create it.

In therapy, that might look like exploring:

• What feels meaningful to you right now

• How to face uncertainty without shutting down

• What kind of life you want to build , not just fall into

It’s not always about having all the answers but learning to live in the questions. As Viktor Frankl wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” When life feels flat or directionless, the work isn’t to fill the silence, it’s to listen to what it’s trying to say. Meaning often begins right in this space.

Stoicism in Everyday Life

Life rarely goes according to plan : a friend cancels last minute, a plan falls apart, someone snaps at you for no reason. Stoicism still feels fresh today. Most importantly, it offers us a reminder that we don’t control what happens. We control how we respond.

Therapy often circles the same truth. It’s not the event itself that causes distress, but the meaning we give it. When we shift our thoughts, our emotions and choices begin to shift too. Practicing Stoicism looks simple but takes constant awareness to pause before reacting, or focus on what’s within reach, or to let go of something.

It’s not about ignoring your feelings. It’s about staying grounded in the midst of them. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “You have power over your mind, not outside events.” That’s the kind of quiet strength that helps us move through life with more peace and purpose.

Five Philosophies to Consider

Philosophy isn’t just for academics or late-night debates; it can be a powerful tool for life’s challenges. When facing challenges turning to foundational ways of thinking can offer grounding perspectives.  These five philosophical approaches may help you better understand yourself, find meaning, and build emotional resilience.

1. Stoicism

 Core idea: You can’t control what happens, you can control how you respond.

 Stoicism teaches to separate what’s within our control from what isn’t.  In therapy, this can be life changing, because you may find a point in time where you learn the lesson to let go of trying to control the uncontrollable. Stoicism encourages emotional discipline by making a choice to engage with emotions differently.

 2. Existentialism

 Core idea: Life doesn’t come with built-in meaning, but you have the freedom to create it.

 Existentialism speaks to the need for purpose. Instead of assuming meaning is something to find, existential thinkers think that you make your own sense of purpose through choice.  It can be powerful in therapy when people are facing grief, major transitions, or identity crises. Even in suffering you have the power to choose your response and discover meaning.

 3. Rationalism

 Core idea: Through reason and reflection, you can discover truth, challenge thoughts and gain insight.

 Rationalism values logic, reasoning, and critical thinking. This approach forms the basis of many modern therapeutic techniques, including cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps clients identify and reframe distorted thoughts.  If you struggle with overthinking, anxiety, or self-critical patterns, rationalism reminds you that not every thought is true. Learning to question and investigate your thinking can be a major step toward clarity.

 4. Empiricism

 Core idea: Knowledge comes from observation, experience, and evidence, not assumptions.

 Empiricism encourages you to learn from what you can see, feel, and experience directly. Instead of trusting beliefs, this philosophy a grounded approach to understanding the world.  In a therapeutic setting, this means tuning into your actual lived experiences rather than getting lost in hypotheticals. It also encourages trying new behaviors and learning from their real-life outcomes.

 5. Absurdism

 Core idea: Life may be inherently meaningless, and you can live fully.

 Absurdism explores the tension between our craving for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe. Just in living a life you have an opportunity to acknowledge despair, embrace the absurd, and keep living with the unknown.  In therapy, Absurdism offers relief by choosing how to show up despite uncertainty. Freedom is found in courage, playfulness, and presence.

 No One Path

 These five philosophies are frameworks for asking better questions. You don’t need to fully subscribe to any of them. Instead, think of them as tools for perspective, purpose, or peace of mind.  Exploring different ways of thinking can be an empowering part of therapy. It can help you move from confusion to clarity, from overwhelm to ownership of your life.

Live Like It Matters Now

Marcus Aurelius writes, “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.”

Think of yourself as dead? At first glance, it’s a bit morbid. But consider it again for a moment.

Aurelius is offering a radical kind of freedom, to imagine your life is already over. Including the regrets. The wasted time. The drama. The things you should’ve said or done . Gone. That version of you? Done.

What’s left is a gift. A clean slate. If you choose to see it that way. To go forward, from this point on to live as properly as you possibly can.

Aurelius wasn’t talking about chasing perfection. How would we even begin to define that anyway? It's about finally dropping the weight of the past and showing up fully for yourself, for your day, for your relationships, your values.

And then there’s that haunting line, “What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” What happens if we choose to not show up? What if we don’t live with purpose? Or if we withhold our love, our truth, our creativity, and joy? We’ll certainly to squander precious time. And we don’t stay neutral. Lastly, we’ll recreate the darkness with shadows.

So here's a question. What if you truly believed your old life was over? What would you stop doing?
What would you finally begin? We don’t need more time. We need more intention.

Letting Go and Finding Closure

Growing up means facing endings. Sometimes our friendships fade. Our relationships shift. Some people who were once a source of positivity may no longer bring out the best. It’s normal to want to hold on, but sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to let go.

In Morgan Richard Olivier’s poem, Let Them Lose You, he reminds us: “You need to let people lose you. Let them believe what they want to believe. Let them think they have better. Let them sleep on your worth.”

Closure doesn’t always come from an apology or explanation. Sometimes closure is you deciding that ‘I will no longer pour my energy where it isn’t respected’. Letting go doesn’t erase the good moments or the lessons learned, it just helps us free ourselves from carrying what no longer fits.

And in time, as the poem says, “they will realize the mistake they made, and it will just be enough time for you to accept that you’re better off without them.” Letting go is not about rejection. It’s about protecting your energy. It’s about choosing yourself, choosing peace, and making room for people and places that are good for you.

Making Space to Speak About Pain

Often we try to tuck pain away. We smile through it, distract ourselves, or say we’re fine. Admitting we hurt can feel risky. What if no one understands?

Pain doesn’t shrink when it’s ignored. It lingers quietly, waiting to step forward. Making space to speak to it, even a little, is courageous.

Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”  Speaking our pain doesn’t require every detail. Sometimes it’s enough to say, “I’m struggling,” or “this feels heavy.”  Sometimes it’s those words that crack us open, that shatters the silence and opens us up to a new place.

Naming our pain is often the first real step toward healing. When we say it out loud, it doesn’t magically fix everything, but it does lighten the load a bit. It gives us space to breathe, to move, to take that next small step. And sometimes, that’s all we need to let a little bit of light in, especially in the places that once felt completely shut off.

Understanding Choice: How Choice Theory Can Empower You

Every day, we make countless choices: what to eat, how to respond to others, and where to focus our time for example. Some decisions feel automatic, but Choice Theory reminds us that we have more control over our lives than we often realize.

Developed by psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser, Choice Theory is built on a simple but powerful idea that we are internally motivated and choose many of our behaviors around five basic needs: love & belonging, power, freedom, fun, and survival.

Rather than blaming our circumstances, people, or past, Choice Theory invites us to take ownership of our behavior and emotions. It encourages us to ask questions like:

• What need am I trying to meet right now?

• Is this choice helping or hurting my relationships?

• What can I do differently to get what I want without causing harm?

In therapy, this approach can be incredibly powerful. Instead of feeling stuck or helpless, clients begin to see new paths forward. They realize that while we can’t always control what happens around us, we can control how we respond, and in turn those choices shape the quality of our lives.

Teens struggling with peer pressure, couples facing communication breakdowns, parents navigating tough family dynamics, and men who feel emotionally disconnected can all benefit from understanding how their choices impact their well-being and relationships. When we start seeing our behavior as a choice and not just a reaction, change become possible.

If you're feeling overwhelmed or disempowered, exploring Choice Theory with a therapist might help you reconnect with agency. Ultimately, it can support you to make choices that move you closer to the life you truly want.

Adolescents and the Unfolding of Potential

The teenage years can feel like a mix of chaos and growth. One minute they’re full of ideas and energy, the next they’re shutting down or pushing back. But underneath it all, something powerful is happening. They’re becoming who they are.

The decade of adolescence is a messy one. They’re no longer kids but not quite adults either. It’s a time of exploring identity, testing limits, and discovering what matters to them.

So, how can we support them? We can stay curious, not reactive. We let them try new things and let them fail. We listen more than we advise. We notice and encourage their strengths. We be as steady as possible.

The teenage years are about becoming. They are a bounty of potential. They are beginning their move from who they are, to who they could be. We are just helping foster potential into it’s highest vision.

One Sunday Morning

Wilco’s “One Sunday Morning” is a quiet, meandering song about family, deficiency, and the complexity of love. It doesn’t move quickly, but invites us to slow down and turn inward.

Tweedy sings:

“And your father’s last words,
Were ‘I can’t believe
What I’ve done…’”

These lines reflect the weight of regret that many of us carry, even when it isn’t our own. Therapy often becomes a space to explore how the echoes of time, the memory of words behind us, or words never said continue to shape us.

Later, he admits, “I said it’s your God I don’t believe in.” This line captivates the tender pain of stepping away from someone else’s beliefs. When we do that it can feel both freeing and lonely. It’s a reminder that growth sometimes asks us to create distance without rejecting those we love.

Tweedy also sings, “I was told the world would never end.” That lyric carries both innocence and disillusionment. It’s like those moments when we’re confronted with the limitations of our childhood certainties and they slip away from us to adult realities, sort of like an annihilation of a worldview. In therapy, many of us return to moments of reckoning, reinvestigating what something was and learning how to grieve what we once believed while opening space up for a new kind of hope.

And then, the refrain: “One Sunday morning, the end of it all.” It returns again and again, just as a memory returns in waves. The song holds a quiet wisdom, that healing isn’t about closure, but about learning to carry both love and hurt side by side. Like this song, we can practice simply being with the tension: listening, breathing, remembering, and trusting that meaning can grow even in what we don’t fully understand.

You Must Change Your Life

The last line of Rilke’s poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo, “You must change your life.” feels like a gentle nudge to wake up. The poem starts by describing an old broken statue that’s incomplete but is still full of life. And as we consider it, we’re reminded that life itself is often unfinished and messy. Deep down we know the brokenness mirrors the thing within us that is uncomfortable to acknowledge. Then there’s a call to face reality, to face our own life today. It’s a cliche, but a heavy reminder to live more intentionally, to pay attention, and to be willing to change.

This line doesn’t give easy answers or echo the excuses we give ourselves. Instead, it points to the fact that each of us has the freedom and the responsibility to choose how we live. The broken statue is a metaphor for the issues of the real world. That beauty and truth aren’t distant ideas but part of everyday life, even when things are messy or hard. Rilke’s words ask us to take part in our lives fully. To change our life means to accept who we are right now and to be brave enough to transform. It’s an invitation and a quest, if we choose.