Existential Angst – Friend or Foe?
Existential angst is an experience that leaves the person asking the bigger questions of life e. What is the point? What is the purpose of living? Is there any meaning or just that I or others make of things? A person facing this experience can find themselves caught in the grip of questioning everything that may have believe about life now or in the past. Norms, social expectations and individual and collective belief systems are questioned as the person truly realises, maybe for the first time, that they alone are the only ones who can make sense of their lives and the world in which they live. Even if others offer solutions, it is each individual who must choose to belief one thing or another, without any real sense of objective rightness in that decision. Existential angst leaves us at the crossroads in our lives – we can either shrivel and withdraw from the headiness of our freedom to choose our own meaning (and being itself) or grasp the challenge and live in an awareness of ‘not knowing’ but taking full and complete responsibility for our life choices.
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