That afternoon, people started showing up at my house for psychotherapy. One woman didn’t utter a single word the entire session, while another burst into tears when she started talking about her fear of growing old alone. The following day, I found myself in a police officer’s uniform, chasing down a drug dealer through the streets of Tel Aviv, and I finished off the week as a sweaty wedding singer in a small banquet hall. In the next group session I said I had never imagined life had so much to offer me, and Yaron assured me I didn’t know the half of it yet.

6.

THREE WEEKS WENT by. More and more people in my group started to discover their meaning. Yakov realized he was born to be a medical clown, Miri enrolled in a yoga teacher training course in Rishikesh, and Lian opened a hummus joint in Haifa. I was the only one who still hadn’t really gotten his act together.

“All these search days are really interesting, but at each one of them I feel like there’s something missing,” I explained to Talia. “Being a strategic advisor means working crazy hours, and being a psychologist seems too emotionally taxing. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I’m getting an answer as to why I should wake up every morning so much as I’m discovering a lot of good ways to evade the question.”

Talia was quiet for a while, then told me she remembered those days well, when she didn’t feel up to anything. “Before I signed up for the Meaning of Life Ltd., I’d go to the beach in Ga’ash every Tuesday afternoon.” She told me how she used to sit on the cliff at the edge of the trail, with no one else around. She’d look at the waves until the sun sank into the sea, trying to understand how she still had the energy to wake up every morning.

“Do you still go to that beach?” I asked.

“No, the Meaning of Life Ltd. gave me the answers I was searching for,” she said, “and I hope you’ll find your answers too. I honestly do.”

7.

TOWARD THE END of the summer, Yaron pulled me aside for a conversation. He said I was probably one of his toughest cases, and that the deluxe program didn’t seem to be working for me.

“But here at the Meaning of Life Ltd. we can’t afford to give up,” he said, and explained they were about to launch the diamond program especially for people like me. A program designed for seasoned meaning-seekers, based on innovative methodologies devised in Austria, where this field was highly developed.

“Obviously I can’t force you,” Yaron said, “but I do think quitting now is like giving up a few meters before reaching the peak of Mount Everest.”