What if life comes with no assigned purpose? No script, no guaranteed meaning, no voice explaining why you are here. Existentialism begins in that unsettling silence. It argues that human beings are thrown into existence first and only afterward build meaning through choices, actions, and responsibility. Freedom sounds beautiful until you realize it also means you cannot easily blame fate, society, or destiny for the life you create.
You are not always confused. Sometimes, you are avoiding choosing.
“I need more clarity.” “I’m waiting for the right moment.” “I don’t know what to do with my life.”
But pause there. What if delay is not uncertainty? What if delay is fear wearing smarter clothes?
Most people think their life is being built by big future decisions: Career, Love, Success, Failure.
But life is quieter than that. It is being built in ordinary moments.
When you study or avoid studying. When you speak or stay silent. When you try again or hide in comfort.
Existentialism begins by making this deeply uncomfortable: Your life is already taking shape.
Not later. Now.
And even doing nothing is still choosing.
What if people spend years chasing things not because they consciously chose those things, but because movement feels safer than questioning?
Because questioning ruins the performance.
One of the most famous ideas in existentialism, especially from philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, is this:
Existence precedes essence.
Think of a knife. A knife is created for a purpose i.e., to cut. Its function exists before the object itself is made.
Humans are different. We are born first, then we live, then we choose, then we become.
There is no label attached at birth saying: future success, future failure, hero, coward, meaningful person, etc Your identity is built through decisions.
That means “who you are” is not just something you discover like buried treasure. A huge part of it is something you create.
People love the idea of freedom. Do whatever you want. Be whoever you want. Choose your own path.
Sounds inspiring.
Existentialists ask a harder question: Can you handle the responsibility that comes with freedom?
Because every choice closes other doors. Choosing one career means not choosing another. Speaking up changes relationships. Staying silent is also a decision. Avoiding action is still an action.
This is why freedom creates anxiety. Not because freedom is bad. Because freedom means ownership.
You become responsible for the shape of your life.
Sartre said: “You are condemned to be free.”
“You cannot escape choosing.”
Refusing to decide is still a decision. Avoiding action is still an action. Freedom sounds beautiful until responsibility enters the room.
Modern life treats anxiety like something to erase immediately. Existential thought sees another layer.
Sometimes anxiety appears because you are standing in front of real freedom.
A future not yet chosen.
A self not yet built.
A life still unwritten.
That uncertainty shakes people.
But maybe discomfort is not always proof that something is wrong.
Sometimes it is proof that something matters.
Sartre also warned about something called bad faith.
This happens when people pretend they have less freedom than they actually do.
Examples:
Now be realistic, circumstances absolutely matter.
Money matters, Family matters, Culture matters, Trauma matters.
The habit of using circumstances as a permanent hiding place. Because sometimes people are less trapped than they think.
Sometimes choosing feels terrifying, so waiting feels safer. Waiting for motivation. Waiting for confidence. Waiting for certainty.
As if clarity arrives before action. Usually, it does not.
Sometimes people surrender their freedom before life even takes it from them.
Maybe the story needs rewriting.
You are not always trapped. Sometimes you are undecided.
You are not always unlucky. Sometimes you are inconsistent.
You are not always lost. Sometimes you are avoiding action because action feels risky.
This truth should not crush you. It should wake you up. Because if choices built the pattern, new choices can interrupt it.
Existentialism does not hand out comfort easily.
It does not promise destiny will fix everything.
It does not guarantee meaning will magically appear.
It does not excuse us from responsibility.
Instead, it offers something harsher and strangely more hopeful: The possibility that even in an indifferent universe, human choices still matter.
That who you become is being written right now.
In your courage.
In your avoidance.
In your honesty.
In your excuses.
In your decisions.
Life may not arrive with meaning attached.
But perhaps meaning is forged exactly there, inside the terrifying freedom of being human.
Be kind. Be honourable
