Consider how much of your life was already in motion before you ever stopped to examine it. By the time most of us ask what we truly want, we have already chosen careers, formed relationships, adopted beliefs, and built identities. We learned to walk, talk, and navigate the world long before we learned to question it. Life does not wait for philosophy.

This is not an accusation. It is simply the human condition. We are thrown into existence and must act immediately. A child does not pause to contemplate the meaning of breakfast. An adolescent does not conduct a rigorous analysis before falling in love or choosing friends. We accumulate habits, preferences, and patterns the way a river accumulates sediment, gradually, unconsciously, inevitably.

The problem arises when we mistake these accumulated habits for deliberate choices. We defend opinions we never formed, protect identities we never constructed, and pursue goals we never selected. The life we are living may belong more to accident and imitation than to any conscious decision.

Camus is not suggesting we stop living until we figure everything out. That would be impossible. But he is inviting us to catch up, to let thinking finally meet living. Today, examine one habit you have never questioned. Ask yourself: Did I choose this, or did it choose me?