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You got a question that makes you think! How to face deep questions

Updated: 2026-06-05 · 2 min read

Questions you can't answer right away

"What does happiness mean to you?" "If tomorrow were your last day, what would you do?" "What's your greatest strength?"

When questions like these arrive, you get stuck. You can answer a light question in 30 seconds, but with a deep question, you may think for 30 minutes and still have no answer.

You may feel like ignoring it, thinking, "I can't answer something this hard." But wait a moment. Deep questions are exactly the ones worth treasuring in a question box.

There's value in not having an answer

Nobody comes up with a perfect answer to a deep question right away. "What is happiness?" is a theme philosophers have kept thinking about for thousands of years. It's only natural that you, as a junior high school student, can't answer it on the spot.

What matters isn't reaching an answer but the process of thinking. The time you spend wondering "What is happiness, anyway?" is itself time for getting to know yourself.

Without a question box, you might never have had a reason to think about this seriously. The person who sent you a deep question gave you the gift of something to think about.

Sleep on it before you answer

You don't need to answer a deep question on the spot. It's fine to sleep on it, thinking, "It's a good question, so let me think about it for a bit."

An answer you've let warm up in your mind for a while tends to come closer to words you're happy with than an answer you squeezed out in a hurry. The answer may come to you out of nowhere while you're walking or taking a bath.

A question box has no rule that says you must reply right away. Taking plenty of time to think is itself proof that you're treating the question with care. If you've taken your time with an answer, the people reading it will likely feel how serious you were.

Your words don't have to be perfect

When you answer a deep question, you don't need to brace yourself to say something impressive. Even if it isn't neatly put together, honest words tend to reach people's hearts more easily.

Start with "I can't quite put this into words, but..." and write in your own words, even if they come out haltingly. That's more sincere than a borrowed famous quote.

What readers want to know isn't a model answer but how you felt and what you thought. An answer you wrote while struggling for words is exactly where your personality shows through. Choose honesty over perfection.

You can answer a question with a question

You don't always have to give an answer to a deep question. Sometimes, answering a question with a question is one way to face it.

When someone asks "What is happiness?", you can reply, "What about you? When do you feel happy?" From there, a conversation can start where you both deepen your thinking together.

Not settling on a firm answer isn't running away. If anything, it's a sincere way of saying, "Let's think about this together." With a deep question, playing catch with the other person is more likely to lead to unexpected discoveries than carrying it all on your own.

With a deep question, the sender is serious too

Unlike a light question, someone who takes the trouble to send a deep question probably really wants to know what you think. You can also take it as a sign that they trust you.

That's exactly why you should take it seriously and not make fun of it. Even if you can't answer it well, if you face it with the feeling "Thank you for thinking about this seriously," your sincerity will likely come across.

A deep question is a chance to bring you and the other person closer. You can connect deep down in a way that surface-level exchanges can't reach. Being able to have a conversation like that is one of the joys of a question box.

How to answer deep questions

Don't try to write a perfect answer. If you honestly write what you think right now, that's enough.

"Honestly, I don't know yet. But for now, I think it might be X." Writing it this way is fine. Admit that you don't know, then share what you think now. That's one form of a sincere answer.

If you get the same question half a year from now, your answer may have changed. That's fine. Thoughts change. If yours have changed, it means you've grown.

It's a good idea to save deep questions as screenshots (sukusho). When you read them again a year later, you can look back and think, "So that's how I thought back then." The copies you keep become a record of your thinking.

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Related terms

SNS & Communication

Like

A feature that lets you show approval or empathy for a social media post with one tap. Because it's so easy, it can mean something very different to the person giving it and the person receiving it.

Psychology

Trust

The feeling that you can believe the other person won't betray you. Question box exchanges are built on this trust.

SNS & Communication

Ignoring

Deliberately not acknowledging or not responding to what someone says or to their very presence. In a question box, it means skipping a question, and unlike silence, it carries the sense of a deliberate rejection.

SNS & Communication

Reply

Responding directly to a specific post or user on social media. Unlike a question box answer, it happens in public, so you need to keep other people watching in mind too.

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