Socrates — The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates said this at his trial, defending a life spent asking hard questions of himself and everyone around him. He would rather die than stop examining what he believed and why.

The line endures because the danger it names is so easy to fall into: drifting through days on autopilot, never pausing to ask whether the life we are living is the one we actually want.

Examination does not require a philosophy degree. It requires a quiet moment and an honest question. Reflecting in a second language, slowly and deliberately, can be exactly that kind of moment.