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A friend once told me a story about a time her sister had a sort of mini-existential crisis. As the afternoon went by on what otherwise seemed like an unremarkable day, the sister increasingly began to feel distraught.
It started as a vague sense of unease - that unpleasant feeling that something is wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. By the time the sun had set, the feeling had developed into a full-blown breakdown. She was crying profusely as she looked back on her life trying to understand where everything had gone wrong.
My friend tried everything she could think of to help, but nothing worked. She felt helpless as her sister continued to spiral right in front of her eyes.
Then a sneaking suspicion occurred to her. “When was the last time you ate something?” my friend asked.
“Um…a while, actually. I had a piece of fruit this morning but that was it.”
Ah.
Half an hour later, after her sister devoured the meal my friend had made for her, the energy in the room had completely changed. There were no more tears or questions about the point of slogging through a miserable existence. The sister was laughing and joking and the weight had been lifted.
The source of her sorrow wasn’t a string of poor life decisions. It wasn’t a failed relationship, family problems, or an absence of meaning.
She was just hungry.
Sometimes our problems are complicated. More often than not, we overcomplicate them. Live accordingly.