Questions are the Answer

I got stung by bees a lot as a kid. No, not all at once; over a period of about 4 years. The thing was, I liked bees. Whenever I came across a bee at Oak Park, the park that I grew up a block away from in Santa Barbara, I would reach out my hand and let it crawl on me. The by-product of all this bee-love was over 30 stings.

Somewhere around the 30th sting, when I was 6 years old, my body decided to become allerigc. The camp counselor rushed me to the hospital and I was given a shot to pull me out of anaphylactic shock. I rode home from the hospital with my dad and something called an EpiPen. For those of you lucky enough to not need this torture implement, it's a hypodermic needle that shoots out of its casing to inject you with medicine to counter your allergic reaction.

When we pulled into our parking spot, my dad ran into the house to get something, then we were going on another errand. The last thing he said before he left me in the truck and walked towards our house; "Miah, don't touch the EpiPen". Do you care to guess what happened next?

The sound of my screaming brought my dad running back to the truck at top speed. I had accidentally injected my hand with the EpiPen.

That was the earliest in a long line of examples of me not learning from others, but needing to learn the lesson through my own experience.

Think about your own life; when have you learned your big lessons? Was it from a book you read, from the advice of a friend? Or was it from messing up really bad? If you're like most people, the most important lessons you've learned through failing. I wrote another article on Failure, check it here .

Another proof of this is your children. When does your son or daughter really remember something? When you tell them the answer or when they discover the answer? Most of the answers we get from other people is forgotten quickly, but the answers we learn ourselves stick. I've only accidentially injected myself with an Epi-pen once.

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."

So, if you buy into this whole idea, what can you do with it?

Here's what I do with it; I've made a practice of not giving people answers. When someone comes to me with either a practical problem or a moral delimma, rather than tell them "you should", "you need to" or "well, I would", I ask them a questions. I listen to them carefully, then I start asking questions that will allow them to provide their own answer.

Sometimes, I already know the answer and my questions are soley for the purpose of allowing them to discover the truth on their own. Sometimes I don't know the answer and my questions help us both find our way there.

I've started working under the context of "Giving an answer robs the person of the truth." I've only been deliberate about this in the past few months and already I've seen big, positive changes in my relationships.

So, the next time someone comes to you with a problem, listen carefully, then ask.

Take the lead,

Jeremiah