How to Be an Existentialist: Or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses: Summary & Key Insights

One of the first barriers to living authentically is the addiction to excuses. We cling to narratives that help us dodge responsibility — ‘I couldn’t help it,’ ‘That’s just how I am,’ or ‘The world won’t let me.’ Existentialism strips these illusions bare. Jean-Paul Sartre insisted that we are ‘condemned to be free.’ This condemnation doesn’t mean punishment; it means that freedom is unavoidable. Whether you act with courage or cowardice, you cannot escape the fact that you are choosing. Even choosing not to act is a choice.

I want you to see how your mind constructs these excuses as a defence against freedom. It’s far easier to believe that fate, genetics, or society determine your life than to confront the truth that you are shaping your reality moment by moment. Existentialism isn’t content with half-measures. It demands that you accept total ownership of your choices. When you stop blaming your upbringing, your boss, or your luck, you begin to reclaim yourself. Every obstacle becomes a mirror reflecting your decisions. And the terrifying truth becomes liberating: you are responsible for your own existence.

So why do people resist this idea so desperately? Because it exposes our comfort zones. Once you realize you are always free to choose differently, your excuses evaporate. You can no longer pretend that your current life — whether miserable or mediocre — is someone else’s fault. The existentialist act is to stand naked before this truth, without self-deception.

Existential freedom isn’t the cheerful slogan of unlimited possibilities. It’s the hardest truth imaginable, because it means that there are no predetermined meanings, no fixed moral codes handed down from above. Sartre’s notion of radical freedom reveals that every value, every commitment, every purpose is something we invent. You create meaning through your choices, but that creation carries weight. You can’t claim freedom without also accepting responsibility for what you make of it.

Living freely means refusing to hide behind institutions, ideologies, or habits. Take, for example, your job. You might say you ‘have to’ work there because of economic necessity. But even that necessity involves a choice — a choice to value security over passion, to prioritize family stability over personal risk. Existentialism forces you to see the truth in that: freedom persists even under constraint. What matters is not the circumstances themselves but the integrity with which you engage them.

Responsibility, then, is not punishment but empowerment. You must recognize that your decisions ripple through the world, affecting others and defining who you become. This isn’t a philosophical abstraction; it’s the heartbeat of your daily existence. Whether you create art, raise children, or wash dishes, each act expresses who you are choosing to be. To be human, says existential philosophy, is to be the author of yourself — and that authorship is never complete.