The Nagging Question

What is the question that nags you? It may be the one that swirls around in your head, cycling around again and again like the horse on the carousel that you decide is the most beautiful one of all (although, experientially, your question may often FEEL like it is the ugliest one.) Or, it may literally be the question that you keep getting asked by people time and time again, and you never quite have the answer or the answer seems to change based on who is asking the question that day. My nagging question of the past couple of years has been, “Since your job is ending in June of 2008, what are you going to do next?” (CU Students, can you relate if you substitute in “what are you going to do when you graduate?” Probably many of you can relate! But, for others, this will not be the question that nags you. You’ll have your own nagging question.)

In his book Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich defined faith as “the state of being ultimately concerned….. (While) the content matters infinitely for the life of the believer, it does not matter for (this) formal definition of faith. Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total person. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements.” Building on this foundation, Robert Emmons suggested that ultimate concerns become manifest as the goals that we strive for regularly, that have maximal value for us, that demand “total surrender” and that have the power to center our lives.1 In short, ultimate concerns are the most important goals for which we typically strive; their significance comes to us because of our striving for them, regardless of whether we are actually “successful.”

These ideas of “faith” and “ultimate concerns” sound exactly like my nagging question. For it is my nagging question of what I will “do next” that taps my core, that cuts me to the bone. When I am asked this question, it feels like I am being asked to articulate who I am, what do I want to do with my life, what kind of person am I becoming and who do I want to become. (This is not because my identity comes from my job but because I want my job to continue to be an expression of my identity, of my vocation as a human being.)

Recognizing that my nagging question is actually tapping into my core faith and my ultimate life concerns also helps me to have patience when people innocently ask me about all this. I know they ask because they care about me, they are curious, and/or they are just making conversation. But, I don’t think most people understand they have just tapped my faith, my ultimate concern, my nagging question. Maybe knowing this will also help you the next time someone asks your nagging question.

1 Robert A. Emmons (1999). The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality.