You’re not asking “why” enough
And you’re missing out because of it.
If there is one important lesson our education system taught me it was from my high school calculus teacher — Mr. Chayo — who was an inspiration for several reasons but most importantly for his philosophy on the question “why?”
You must always seek to understand if you are to truly attain knowledge.
Asking “why” goes well beyond imposing the question in lessons you learn in school, work, or assignments. “Why” strikes at the heart of the concept of learning and understanding in general — and learning and understanding will never stop as a human being so long as you are on this Earth. There will always be more content, more experiences, more people, more feelings, more conflict — and through all of it, your experience will be shaped by the experiences themselves as much as the extent to which you understand them. Your directions in life can shift in seconds after asking the right question and learning something that alters your beliefs, shapes your thinking, or teaches you something unexpected.
Ultimately — whether you decide to begin asking this question more often depends on how much you want to challenge yourself.
Learning is a process. It requires patience. It requires thinking. It requires an open mind. It requires putting aside the ego and thinking rationally (most of the time). For many, these are too many factors and constraints to live by in their philosophy, and so they move along the current, rarely stopping to understand and instead consuming what is in front of them.
But those who innovate. Who create. Who lead. Who are in touch with their feelings. Who do not shy away from the big picture. Who have intellectual humility. Who teach others. They all have one thing in common — they ask this question to themselves, to others, and to the world around them.
You can exercise this skill on your children or your friends the next time they tell you that they enjoyed something. Why did they enjoy it? You can ask it when you see something in the news you don’t quite understand — why are our folks in the younger generations leaving the workforce in droves? You can ask it at work when your manager tells you something matter-of-fact — why do we do it that way? The key in any of these circumstances is to approach these conversations with an open mind and humility. If you ask with an aura of superiority, aggressiveness, or demeaning, the other party may take it poorly. Being intellectually curious — genuinely curious — is the ticket to bridging the gap between your mind and the knowledge that you seek.
The “5 whys” — continually asking yourself “why” up to five times to undertake root cause analysis and truly understand what is driving the problem, behavior, feeling, or action in question, has grown in popularity. It is increasingly being taught in corporate culture seminars and self-care content for emotional development. Not only does “why” open up the universe for you to build knowledge and gain new insights, but it also can prove pivotal in your ability to analyze your own thoughts and emotions — to self actualize.
Now, it may feel scary to ask “why” for certain topics or boxes in your mind that you would prefer to avoid. Do not be alarmed if you find yourself discovering things you have tried to suppress — either implicitly or explicitly — when you undertake this process of self-understanding and intellectual humility. If things become too emotionally overwhelming, note it, take a break, and consider revisiting it later. Just keep the end goal in mind — knowledge is power, and you will be better off in the long run if you understand your motivations, emotions, and thoughts better.
Ignorance may be bliss, but in our increasingly complex and digital age, it will become harder and harder to ignore the process of contemplating the deeper questions and quest for self-knowledge and truth. And as human society becomes more disconnected through layers of technology, this sort of self inflection becomes even more important because it will happen less often serendipitously than it has in the past (no casual get-togethers at the local store, less face to face contact, remote work, etc.).
Keep an open mind. Focus on the fact that understanding something will not only better your knowledge of a topic, but reshape the way you think about the world, which will allow you to take in more of it. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier over time. Soon, you’ll be doing it second nature and incorporate it into your line of thinking.
And that is when the true learning begins.
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