Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox.Dear James,Every Thursday for the past decade, I’ve sat with the same group of guys for a beer after work. I don’t think any of them has changed a bit in 10 years. Nothing. They’ve done nothing to grow themselves or their talents. Each one of them, if they were to die today, would get nearly the same eulogy: Nice man. Worked hard. Loved his children. Nothing wrong with any of that. Or is there?I love them—and also admit that I’m judging them. I can’t help wondering if they feel any compulsion to better themselves, to help their neighbors, to serve others. What do you think is our obligation to think of people beyond ourselves?Dear Reader,Here’s a question for you.Do you really love these guys? Do you appreciate each one in his radiant singularity, while knowing in your heart that behind and beyond this singularity you share the same immortal, compassionate essence? Can you look at any one of your buddies holding a beer and getting louder (or quieter) as the evening progresses, and recognize his struggle as a child of God in a fallen world?Probably not, right? Because if you loved them like that, you’d know that plenty has happened in their lives in 10 years, and that they have most certainly changed or been changed. Nature is a Heraclitean fire, as the poet said: Everything’s moving, burning, rushing, altering its state. And we drink beer with our buddies—or I do—partly to slow it all down. To anchor myself woozily in space with dudes I love. Heraclitus told us that you can never step in the same river twice; you can definitely step in the same bar twice.You don’t have to love everybody, of course. There’ll be people for whom you have only one beer’s worth of love in you, and that’s fine. But these guys, you’ve been with them for a while: You have, as Bodhi says in Point Break, “shared time.”So, go deeper with your drinking buddies. Drink more, if necessary. Shift gears, drop down, ask the questions, make the confessions. Find out how everyone’s really doing. Crack open Thursday night like a cosmic egg.After that, you can address your own feeling of frustration: your sense that, day to day, the richer and wilder part of life is going unattended. This is very important. What is your neglected talent? Do you want to grow and serve? This country is full of holes—places where the need is so great that, for a willing and courageous person, it is literally impossible to be superfluous. There’s one in your neighborhood, for sure. Jump in.Cheering you on,JamesBy submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.