Valuable questions have become so rare these days. At some point between asking your mom why bugs taste like pickles and asking your dad for the car keys, you, me—well, all of us—stopped asking questions. We left that comfy cocoon of childhood in which there are no silly questions, emerging as glorious butterflies who proclaim that we have all the answers. We began to believe that we do, indeed, know it all.
Many people regard asking questions—particularly about ourselves—as childish, while others see it as downright dangerous. We don’t actually care about our deeper thoughts on topics, we merely want to be sure that we know what we ought to say in order to look good in front of others. We are scared to death of profound, far-reaching questions because they may force us to change our perspectives, attitudes or beliefs. But, we need to ask anyway and a good place to start is with these two questions:
Question #1: In what areas of your life are you less than honest with others?
This question takes time to resolve because we must identify all of the people about whom we care and really don’t care. This process involves searching through our interactions and words to determine who has received a less-than-genuine picture of us. Not who we try to be, but rather the deep down real people we are.
Perhaps we have convinced ourselves that we treat everyone with dignity and respect. We may momentarily believe that we honor our spouses, cherish our children, and respect our colleagues, but do we really?
Ask yourself: Are there co-workers to forgive? Are there friends deserving of apologies? Are there neighbors to connect with? Are there children who need to be reminded of your love?
Ask yourself, really ask yourself—“In what areas am I less than honest with others?”
Question #2: In what areas of your life are you less than honest with yourself?
The heart beats a wee bit faster on close-to-home questions like this one. We begin to squirm in our chairs. We don’t like being called out. We don’t like having to answer for things as simple as being dishonest with ourselves.
But this question is an important one. It is the core engine of personal change.
If we are honest with ourselves, we recognize that we are not as perfect as the characters we play on the stage of life. We know that we are judgmental and prejudiced and superficial and greedy and selfish and ungrateful, at least at some times and to some extent.
We know these things yet we try to conceal them, even from ourselves.
When we contemplate the people we have become, we come face to face with the real problem—we are not as good at being spouses, parents, employees, friends, etc. as we’d like to think.
Look in your heart and ask, “In what areas am I being less than honest with myself?”
It is likely that, twelve months from now, most people will be living in pretty much the same manner as they do today. Introspection is lost in the shallow manipulation of thoughts and words that make us undeservedly proud of ourselves. Our relationships will fail to grow deeper. Even our understandings of who we may become will be lost in favor of acting the way others expect us to.
We will continue to live in a world where we have all the answers. Meanwhile, the lives we truly desire remain hidden deep beneath these two unanswered questions. To ignore these important questions is to grow stagnant. Without pushing ourselves to more deeply understand and accept who we are in the world in which we live, we remain unchanged.
Be different. Ask yourself the hard questions.