The Whats and Whys.
“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -Rainer Maria Rilke.
When I’m at a crossroads, I've found that what gets me out are the quality and type of questions I’m asking myself. The questions usually help me to get to the root of what is bothering me or help to guide me to the “breadcrumbs” that would.
I have written quite a few times on curiosity and how it’s the ultimate superpower. What powers curiosity? Questions, well-crafted, exploratory open open-minded questions.
Questions are so powerful that if we are not asking the right questions for anything, or even asking questions at all, we would never be able to solve any problems, both in our personal lives and at work.
One book I revisit often is Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, where he explores the transformational power of questions. He defines a beautiful question as an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift he way we perceive or think about something, and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.
The kind of question that doesn’t demand an immediate answer but stays with you, sparks your curiosity, takes you somewhere new.
What if the right question could change your life? A beautiful question doesn’t solve, it stirs within us. It's the question that could begin a career shift. Reexamine your relations, your life choices.
A friend shared a blog post from Where The Road Bends by Steven Schlafman yesterday, it was titled Living The Questions, and it was so timely because I was already drafting today’s post, which was also about asking the right questions and letting them guide us.
Here are some excerpts I liked from his post;
There are some questions whose answers cannot come quickly, or at all. What if, as Rilke suggests, we allowed the biggest questions to guide us, carving our path through the unknown and teaching us to embrace uncertainty?
Sometimes, the journey the question puts us on is more valuable than the answer we may find.
I’ve come to appreciate that a great question is a living, dynamic inquiry. You can’t solve it all at once; it requires you to inhabit it, to wear it like your favourite outfit. As you do, it stretches your perspective, broadens your understanding, deepens your sense of self, and expands what you thought was possible. It reveals where you are and what’s ready to unfold in your life.
The right questions carry a gravity of their own. They demand your attention and shift it. The question is not about getting things "right" but about getting closer. Closer to the pulse of life. Closer to that which matters. Closer to your truth, until you can’t ignore it anymore.
In the simplicity of a single question lies profound depth. While answers may come over time, the true gift is in how the question shapes us along the way. To live with it is to embrace the unknown, trusting that in the stillness and patience, something deeper is being revealed.
What if we all lived more fully in the presence of the questions that stir us, instead of rushing to resolve them? Maybe, in the end, it’s not the answers that matter, but how these questions move us forward, step by step, toward something new.”
What type of beautiful questions are you asking yourself? Here are some of mine;
“What would my life look like if I truly trusted myself?”
“What would I do if I weren’t afraid?
Oh, before I go, I started watching this series, Your Friends and Neighbours. It’s an excellent show that makes us ask ourselves what the real point of all the things we are chasing is.
Keep going,
Ije