An Existential Trigger in the Shadow of Søren Kierkegaard
Some mornings, something happens while adding milk to the coffee.
Your hand suddenly stops.
You look not at the cup, but into the void.
The day has already begun, but you still feel like you haven’t “started” yet.
And in the midst of those mornings, a voice whispers:
“Did I choose this life?”
Most of the time, this question feels like a sigh caught between breaths.
We don’t even say it out loud; because we don’t want to seem too dramatic.
Besides, life goes on. Emails must be answered, bills must be paid, the child must be dropped off at school, a friend’s birthday must be remembered, a job interview must be prepared for…
Too much…
Yet deep inside, an unseen part of us seems fixated on another question:
“What Could God Have Meant by Me?”
When Søren Kierkegaard asked this question in 19th-century Denmark, there were probably no WhatsApp blue ticks or LinkedIn failures, but the meaninglessness was the same.
By asking this question, he pointed to the existential crisis within the modern human being.
And that void is still there. It’s just a bit more digital now.
Today, we place this question beside our coffee.
We place it in the background of the podcast we listen to during morning traffic.
It resurfaces in those moments when we ask ourselves, “Why do I still feel incomplete?” after returning from a friend’s gathering.
And yes, there is no answer to this question.
But living with that question itself is precisely the essence of what we call existence.
According to Kierkegaard, humans are “in the process of becoming.”
So they are never complete; they are always searching.
Sometimes in love, sometimes in success, sometimes in travel, sometimes in a simple home, in dried beans, or even in an accidentally opened Instagram story…
And he doesn’t even know exactly what he’s searching for.
But there is one thing that brings us to the sharpest edge of this questioning:
Loss.
The end of a relationship.
The collapse of a dream.
The failure of expectations.
The sudden loss of that sense of security.
At that moment, the question echoes again:
“What could God have meant by Me?”
And sometimes another thought quietly follows this question:
“Rather than living like this… maybe I should never have been born at all?”
Let’s pause here.
Because this thought is one of the most important crossroads mentioned in psychological literature.
In clinical psychology, this point is referred to as “suicidal ideation,” but it does not necessarily mean physical death.
As Frankl emphasizes in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, people often want to leave behind not life itself, but the painful meaning of life.
Carl Jung also says:
“A person can only transform themselves by going through pain.
And sometimes this transformation involves leaving behind a part of one’s old self.”
Thus, some “suicides” are not physical but existential.
Ourselves, our lives, the ways we form relationships…
The masks we present to society…
We bury that tired “self” inflated with expectations.
This is a kind of death.
But then comes birth.
When you reach this point, you wake up one morning and say:
“I am no longer that person.”
You don’t need to find a new job.
You don’t need to fall in love with someone new.
You don’t have to leave Istanbul and move to Bali (though those who want to can, of course).
Because change sometimes happens deep inside, quietly.
It’s like a spark.
It begins one morning over coffee, when you fix your gaze on a single point.
Before you know it, you’re no longer using the old phrases.
Before you know it, you’re no longer answering certain calls or replying to certain messages.
This is not a breakup, it is a self-transformation.
It’s not mourning, it’s realization.
And no, we still don’t know the answer to this question.
What did God intend for us?
Perhaps nothing.
Or everything.
Perhaps it was simply to experience.
Perhaps it was to feel.
In the end, we are merely those who strive to understand while living.
Sometimes with words, sometimes with silence…
And sometimes through the letters we write to ourselves.
References:
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning.
Jung, C. G. (1953). The Undiscovered Self. Princeton University Press.
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books.
Kierkegaard, S. (1849). The Sickness unto Death. Princeton University Press.