A 12-Year-Old Asked Me: What’s the Point of Life If We Reincarnate?
“Reincarnation is a dance. It is a movement of life to the rhythm of the universe. Spirit and matter join together as one dancing partner. They dance and it goes on forever.”
Over the holidays, I spent time with my 12-year-old niece, who flew in from Texas with my brother. She’s at that age where she’s beginning to look like a K-pop star in the making—self-aware, stylish, and quietly observant. Her dad wasn’t able to attend the larger family gathering because he wasn’t feeling well, so I tried to make the most of our time together. I took her to a charming French café for brunch and later to South Coast Plaza to see the Christmas displays.
She enjoyed the pastries and the sparkle, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere.
What I didn’t expect was for her to start asking me questions about the meaning of life.
As we sat there, sharing a chocolate croissant, she casually asked why life seems to unfold so differently for different people. More specifically, she wanted to know what it means for a person’s life when they have what she called a “bad childhood.”
The question stopped me. It was incredibly astute—and tender. I immediately connected it to the loss of her mother to cancer just the year before. I had often wondered how deeply she had processed that loss, or whether she had been quietly carrying questions no one had given language to yet. In that moment, I knew I needed to be very present for this conversation and be very thoughtful of my response.
I shared my own belief—one way of understanding life—that we travel with what some call a soul family, and that we may choose to reincarnate into one another’s lives to help each other evolve. From this perspective, some souls take on early hardship because they are ready to grow in a particular way, sooner rather than later. It’s not a belief meant to justify pain, but rather one that tries to make sense of it without stripping it of meaning.
She listened quietly, then asked me something that felt even more fundamental.
“If we’re just going to keep reincarnating,” she said, “then what’s the point of life?”
I had to pause. Not because I didn’t have thoughts, but because I wanted my answer to come from somewhere honest. I realized what she had done — bypassing the usual questions about why things happen and go straight to the core of existence itself. I remember thinking how rare it was to be asked something this direct—even by adults.
Why Life Still Matters
I understood what she was getting at. If life continues again and again, where does meaning live? What’s the point of wanting anything, building anything, or becoming anything at all?
While I do believe in reincarnation, I also believe that each life is the one life we have to live fully.
At first, this may sound contradictory. But what I mean is that each life we are given is uniquely precious. We never return in the same form, with the same body, the same voice, the same circumstances, or the same inner makeup. In that sense, this is the only life we will ever live as who we are right now.
If we come back again—if we choose to—we do so as a different being altogether. We’re given another set of attributes, gifts, and limitations, and with them, an entirely different adventure. To me, that’s part of what makes existence so compelling: the opportunity to experience life from many angles, but only once from this one.
Soul Expression & Meaning
Because this life is singular, I feel both responsible and privileged to express it fully. To experience what I’m drawn to experience. To leave behind what feels true to me. To offer whatever imprint feels natural to offer.
If there is another life after this one, perhaps I’ll encounter the echoes of what I’ve left behind here. Or perhaps not. Either way, this moment—this expression—matters.
The point of writing this is not to suggest that anyone needs to make a grand gesture or leave a dramatic legacy. Soul expression doesn’t have to be loud to be meaningful. For some, it’s quiet, steady, and deeply personal. A life can be a contribution without being a spectacle.
And who knows—whatever your soul chooses to explore next may look entirely different from this one.
Gratitude & Impermanence
When I reflect on the fleeting nature of life, I feel an unexpected sense of gratitude. Knowing that I will never again inhabit this exact body, this voice, this perspective, makes everything feel more vivid.
From this view, there is no such thing as a “bad life”—only experiences that move the soul forward. Some are gentler than others. Some are deeply challenging. But all of them shape us in ways that are not always visible while we’re inside them.
I once heard that gratitude is seeing something as if for the first time. I often think of the other side of that idea: that gratitude can also be seeing something while knowing you may never see it again.
If you knew this was the only time you would look the way you do, speak the way you do, have the friendships you have, and live in the world as it exists right now—how would you look at it?
And if you chose not to return for another round, wouldn’t you want to see as much of this world as you could before leaving? How might you move through your days differently if you knew this was your last incarnation?
