Maya Shankar

And so Florence had no choice but to entertain a new philosophy altogether.

Maybe a broken heart was not a problem to solve.

And maybe closure wasn't the answer.

Research by the psychologist Dacher Keltner shows that when we reduce our need for what's called cognitive closure, the desire to arrive at clear and definitive answers, our capacity to feel joy and beauty expands.

Florence told me that when she freed herself from this goal-oriented mindset, a mindset, by the way, that she had valued for so much of her life up until this point, she began to find unexpected delight in the unknown.

This leads us to the second question you can ask yourself the next time you face something unexpected.

How might this change change what you value?

The unexpected implosion of Florence's marriage has permanently shifted the way that she sees her life, from a puzzle in need of solutions to a more serendipitous path of discovery.

Now, when Florence goes hiking, she's just as likely to sit still, feeling the breeze, as she is to try and make the summit.

She no longer makes five-year plans.

And she's comfortable not knowing all the answers around her heartbreak.

By the way, I was texting with Florence the other day, and she's currently in a very happy relationship.

All right, now on to question number three.

This one is about how we define ourselves.

It's about our self-identities.

And it comes from my personal story of change with the violin.

When my injury took the violin away from me, I found myself grieving not just the loss of the instrument, but also the loss of myself.

For so long, the violin had defined me that without it, I wasn't sure who I was or who I could be.

I felt stuck.

I'd later learned that this phenomenon is known as identity paralysis.