How to Fall in Love with Questions
A New Way to Thrive in Times of Uncertainty
Published on 22. May 2025
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-06-333513-4 (ISBN)
Description
"In a world stupefied by quick fixes and easy answers, Elizabeth Weingarten delivers a smart and urgent wake-up call."-Daniel H. Pink
"An interesting, insightful, and surprisingly reassuring read."-Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential
Journalist and applied behavioral scientist Elizabeth Weingarten charts a new path for personal growth-a way to embrace the questions of our lives instead of seeking fast, easy answers.
What do you do when faced with a big, important question that keeps you up at night? Many people, understandably, seize answers dispensed by "experts," influencers, gurus, and more. But these fast, easy, one-size-fits-all solutions often fail to satisfy, and can even cause more pain.
What if our questions-the ones we ask about relationships, work, meaning, identity, and purpose-are not our tormentors, but our teachers? Inspired by 150-year-old advice from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and backed by contemporary science, Elizabeth Weingarten offers a fresh, evidence-based approach for dealing with these seemingly unsolvable questions. In her quest for self-discovery, Weingarten shares her own journey and the stories of many others, whose lives have transformed through a different, and better, relationship with uncertainty.
Designed to inspire anyone who feels stuck, powerless, and drained, How to Fall in Love with Questions challenges us to unlock our minds and embark on the kind of self-discovery that's only possible when we feel most alive-that is, when we don't know what will happen next.
This insightful guide to living with uncertainty reveals:
Finding Purpose: Learn to see the big questions about your career, relationships, and identity not as tormentors, but as your greatest teachers.
Behavioral Science for Anxiety Relief: Discover science-backed strategies to transform your relationship with the unknown and find peace when you feel stuck, powerless, or drained.
Mindset Shifts: Move beyond the endless search for quick fixes and one-size-fits-all solutions with a new framework for embracing life's most important questions.
Living with Uncertainty: Inspired by the timeless wisdom of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, find a better, more resilient way to navigate life when you don't know what will happen next.
"An interesting, insightful, and surprisingly reassuring read."-Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential
Journalist and applied behavioral scientist Elizabeth Weingarten charts a new path for personal growth-a way to embrace the questions of our lives instead of seeking fast, easy answers.
What do you do when faced with a big, important question that keeps you up at night? Many people, understandably, seize answers dispensed by "experts," influencers, gurus, and more. But these fast, easy, one-size-fits-all solutions often fail to satisfy, and can even cause more pain.
What if our questions-the ones we ask about relationships, work, meaning, identity, and purpose-are not our tormentors, but our teachers? Inspired by 150-year-old advice from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and backed by contemporary science, Elizabeth Weingarten offers a fresh, evidence-based approach for dealing with these seemingly unsolvable questions. In her quest for self-discovery, Weingarten shares her own journey and the stories of many others, whose lives have transformed through a different, and better, relationship with uncertainty.
Designed to inspire anyone who feels stuck, powerless, and drained, How to Fall in Love with Questions challenges us to unlock our minds and embark on the kind of self-discovery that's only possible when we feel most alive-that is, when we don't know what will happen next.
This insightful guide to living with uncertainty reveals:
Finding Purpose: Learn to see the big questions about your career, relationships, and identity not as tormentors, but as your greatest teachers.
Behavioral Science for Anxiety Relief: Discover science-backed strategies to transform your relationship with the unknown and find peace when you feel stuck, powerless, or drained.
Mindset Shifts: Move beyond the endless search for quick fixes and one-size-fits-all solutions with a new framework for embracing life's most important questions.
Living with Uncertainty: Inspired by the timeless wisdom of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, find a better, more resilient way to navigate life when you don't know what will happen next.
Reviews / Votes
"In a world stupefied by quick fixes and easy answers, Elizabeth Weingarten delivers a smart and urgent wake-up call. She shows why curiosity beats certainty-and why doubt is often the prelude to discovery. Her insights will inspire you to relish ambiguity, reject certitude, and revel in the magic of questions." - Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive, and When"Most people waste a great deal of time and energy trying to eliminate uncertainty. This book illuminates how we can learn to live with it. It's an interesting, insightful, and surprisingly reassuring read." - Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential and host of the podcast Re:Thinking
"A brave, powerful and insightful book that wonderfully combines personal narrative, the stories of others and scientific research into a celebration of the value of continuing to find and ask questions. The surest sign that something is wrong in your life is if you've run out of questions." - Barry Schwartz, visiting professor at Hass School of Business, U.C. Berkeley, and author of The Paradox of Choice and Practical Wisdom
"At this moment of high anxiety and uncertainty about the future and just about everything else, Elizabeth Weingarten's captivating and timely book shows that the hopeful way out is through not only asking the right questions but learning to patiently sit with them rather than grasp for easy answers. Using her own intensely personal story and that of the soulful poet Rainer Maria Rilke as touch points, Weingarten takes readers on a fascinating journey through history, philosophy, and science to discover that falling in love with the big questions and embracing uncertainty can lead to greater clarity and richer lives." - Brigid Schulte, New York Times-bestselling author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time
"Weingarten's surprising research and deeply personal look at her own journey reminds us to embrace the question itself. How to Fall in Love With Questions maps, with superb frameworks, how to focus on the essence of our inquiries and tricks to invert our questions to get to the core. This must-read is not a 'how to' or 'self help' book-but one that, in her words, guides us to another way to be in the world." - Christopher M. Schroeder, global venture investor and chairman of the German Marshall Fund
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
433 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-333513-4 (9780063335134)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2025
HarperCollins
€19.74
Available for download
Person
Elizabeth Weingarten is a journalist and applied behavioral scientist who works at the intersection of science and storytelling. She has worked at The Atlantic, Slate, and Qatar Today, and was managing editor of Behavioral Scientist. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and Time. She lives in Northern California with her husband and son.