Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Finding your bliss.
For over 20 years, Krista Tippett refined the art of asking questions. As host and creator of the On Being radio show, she regularly asked scientists and philosophical thinkers metaphysical questions.
But when she was faced with uncertainty in her own life, she realized she had to ask herself some big questions. She found help in the words of poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
"Rilke said, try to be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart," Tippett shared on NPR's TED Radio Hour. "Don't treat it as something that you have to rush to an answer for. Because if those questions are big and important enough, what you want is to be able to live the answers that they would give you."
An open question to help you navigate big changes
If you are thinking about making a life change or career move, Tippett offers the questions that helped her pivot: "What in the way I'm living now and working now depletes me, and what is life giving… and are the things I'm struggling with now the right things for me to be struggling with?"
In a world of increasing ecological, economic and political crises, Tipett says the very act of sitting with a question can shape you in important ways. And rushing toward an answer can minimize the gravity of the uncertainty you are feeling.
"Those moments when a new question rises up in us, stops us in our tracks, those are pivot points," said Tippett in a 2023 TED talk. "Those are moments when the possibility of discovery breaks in. So the invitation here is to engage in the adventure of a new reverence for the questions that are alive in you … in the world around you."
How you can set a New Year's question for 2026
Tippet suggests you forego New Year's resolutions and instead ask a question. She offers another big question to help you start brainstorming your own: "What amidst all that is breaking wants to be born that I can attend to?"
In other words, when things feel like they are falling apart, what is taking shape that you can nurture? Jot down other questions that feel right for you as you begin 2026. But, don't worry about the answers.
Instead, pick an open-ended question to be your companion for the whole year.
"If we're looking for an answer, we may be disappointed," says Tippett. She suggests returning to your question whenever you need guidance this year. "We're looking for what emerges in us, what we start to see that we didn't see before."
Over time, think of that question as a really good friend. Use it as a launching pad for other reflections about your life: new skillsets you want to build or people you want to meet as you try to understand this question.
"You may find as you move forward that the question itself needs revising," says Tippet. "Like this question wasn't particular enough, or I want to give this question some nuance. So the question is alive too."
How living with unresolved questions helps you feel at peace
Tippett says treating questions as something to dwell on, not immediately answer, is more in sync with how time actually works.
"It is not treating time like some kind of bully that tells me I must have an answer," says Tippet. "It's letting things emerge … not grasping for the first thing that feels like an answer, but moving with curiosity towards it, testing it and not feeling like it's a failure if it turns out … it's not the answer."
This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. The digital story was written by Harsha Nahata and edited by Phoebe Lett. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.
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