Søren Kierkegaard

Choosing What Matters, Then Building It Joyfully

The smile is not decorative; it signals the spirit in which the work is done. Kierkegaard is not recommending forced cheerfulness but an inner consent—an ability to carry difficulty without becoming embittered. That smile suggests you are not merely complying with a task but participating in it freely, which aligns with his larger focus on inwardness and authenticity. Furthermore, joy here functions like endurance. When effort is guided by a chosen “why,” the “how” becomes more bearable, and even setbacks can be absorbed as part of the craft rather than taken as personal humiliation. [...]

Leaping Past Doubt to Meet the Unexpected

Kierkegaard’s line begins by treating hesitation not as failure but as a meaningful boundary: the moment when thought has analyzed all it can, yet still cannot guarantee an outcome. In that pause, the mind tries to protect us with reasons, forecasts, and contingencies, but it also quietly limits what we’re willing to attempt. From there, the quote reframes uncertainty as a doorway rather than a wall. When thought hesitates, it signals that we’ve reached the edge of what can be made safe and predictable—precisely the edge where something genuinely new might enter. [...]

Choosing Motion Over the Illusion of Perfect Plans

A practical translation of the quote is to treat goals as hypotheses and steps as experiments. Instead of asking, “What is the perfect plan?” you ask, “What is the smallest action that teaches me something?” An aspiring writer might draft one page a day; an entrepreneur might interview five potential customers before building anything; a student might do practice problems before rereading notes. With each experiment, direction emerges from evidence, and confidence becomes grounded rather than imagined. Thus progress “prefers” imperfect feet because they generate the data that perfect plans can only pretend to have. [...]

Conviction Turns Thought into Urgent Action

Yet the quote’s first clause safeguards the second: depth disciplines urgency. Kierkegaard is not praising impulsiveness; he is distinguishing between hasty action and urgent action. Haste comes from impatience or fear, while urgency “born of conviction” comes from a settled understanding of what must be done. This creates a natural rhythm: deep decision-making slows you down long enough to choose rightly, and conviction speeds you up once the choice is made. In that rhythm, urgency becomes a form of integrity—acting in alignment with what you have truly judged to be necessary. [...]

Turning Longing into Work That Lightens

To understand why labor matters, it helps to place the quote in Kierkegaard’s broader emphasis on inward choice and responsibility, especially in Works of Love (1847), where he explores love not as a mood but as a task. Longing can trap a person in the aesthetic mode—seeking intensity, novelty, or perfect fulfillment just out of reach. By contrast, labor belongs to the ethical: it asks for repetition, patience, and commitment. Consequently, the “lightness” he describes is not superficial cheerfulness; it is the relief that comes when one’s inner life is organized by purpose. Work gives longing a form, and form reduces the chaos of desire. [...]

Faith, Uncertainty, and the Meaning Born of Action

From this starting point, Kierkegaard distinguishes between abstract knowledge and lived existence. You can plan, calculate, and imagine, yet life will still exceed your forecasts. He argues in *Either/Or* (1843) that no ethical system or rational blueprint can fully capture what it means to exist as a single individual with concrete choices. Therefore, action precedes full understanding: you step into a job, a relationship, or a vocation without knowing its final shape. It is only by journeying—rather than by drafting the perfect map—that your life acquires contour, depth, and direction. [...]

Choosing Faith Where Doubt and Longing Meet

Describing faith as a “chosen footstep” emphasizes human responsibility. Instead of portraying faith as inherited tradition or social habit, Kierkegaard insists it must be personally decided. This choice happens in the inward space he calls subjectivity, where each individual faces anxiety, ambiguity, and possibility alone. Much like Abraham in *Fear and Trembling*, who chooses to trust God without external validation, the individual today must also decide: to remain immobilized by uncertainty or to step forward in trust. Thus, faith is dignified as a free act rather than a passive acceptance. [...]