Life is short, so is this read. I do hope this exercise is powerful enough to make you grab your seat with a memorable assessment. Let’s start with the following illustration to make it spicy.
You are at a family reunion. There are a bunch of relatives, kids playing around the backyard. You suddenly notice one of these little creatures, Kristen, your cousin, trying to insert her hand in the hot burning charcoal grill. You run at her, screaming get the hell out there – afraid of the inevitable injury. Fortunately, she listens, she stops. Kristen comes to you with those adorably bright eyes, filled with curiosity. She asks: why pal? Then you explain she will burn her hand if she exposes it to the fire. She asks: why is the fire hot? You know what comes next, more whys, and many of those questions will make you perplex frequently, clueless as to how to reply.
This article is about those questions. Some of the most difficult questions you can face are asked by kids. People tend to confuse them with stupid questions.
During early childhood, kids still have a flexible, moldable mind, living in constant effort to bend reality with imagination, to make sense of the world. They ask a big bunch of rocket science questions. They approach life as a world to discover, every question filled with genuine curiosity, no shame, no expectations, just nonjudgemental curiosity. They are definitely not stupid questions. Stupid is not knowing what to answer, or at least not trying to find out.
The Kid That Shocked My Life
History teaches us that humanity has progressed so fast in great part due to the curiosity we possess. Our guide to discovering the unknown stems from asking big questions: Is the planet round or square? Are there other lands beyond the horizon? Are there more humans? Is there life on other planets?
The search for answers to these questions shaped our global society as we know it. But how about those questions that shape us as individuals? How about happiness? How about contentment? Have we cared enough about our personal self?
Allow me please to make this personal, to become a kid again. I do care for those answers. But what I am most curious about is how to formulate questions to help me find those answers. In my short experience, I’ve found that the annoying kid approach works best due to the unbiased nature of the questions.
When we focus these types of questions towards life, it’s shocking how much they can teach us about how little we know ourselves. We live in a society filled with manuals on how to earn and spend money yet there are just a few on how to know yourself and live a bearable life in this fucked up world.
Glacier Breaking Questions
The people I meet during my travels or around dinner tables tend to get shocked by a set of questions I playfully ask. They are designed to dig deep into the conceptualization of their own existence, and at the same time are disguised as small talk questions, or just plain stupid.
I said I was going to make this personal already. I’ve been told I’m an ice breaker. I have a rare talent for making people talk a lot about themselves when we’re sitting around. This is nothing but the consequence of me asking stupid questions. What do they look like?
Without further delay, here the questions that may shake up your day a little bit. Suggestion: read them to yourself out loud, reflect.
- What makes you happy?
- What do you want to accomplish with your life?
- How long is your life?
- If money didn’t exist, what would you be doing as an occupation?
- How do you want to be remembered once you are dead?
Reality Check
Did it take you long to think of answers to those questions? Were you perplexed? You don’t know what you want from life? I think I’ve been there. I went through this process a long time ago, I asked myself these questions. Where the heck is my life heading to? The hamster spinning the wheel in my brain went non stop crazy for days.
Honest confession. The hidden agenda of this post is to perform a friendly reality check. To observe how you assess your well-being at any given moment. Notwithstanding the simplicity of the questions, they make you think, unveiling your true desires, your fears and lack of knowledge of your persona. My apologies for the latter.
Besides the utility of breaking glaciers of tension at the dinner table, these questions can be the epicenter of a quest to find out why you are not entirely happy at this moment or feeling that something is missing. In the best case, if you know the answers, they can refresh or strengthen the foundations of your well-being.
Scotch On The Rocks Or Dustbin
What to do about all this ice we broke? Is there anything wrong? I’m not judging. It’s normal not knowing the answers, not knowing ourselves.
It’s not a rule of life to be born a living expert. However, knowing yourself is widely acknowledged to be a decent journey to hold your dung together to live a meaningful life, doing what you love, next to the people who suit you best for this purpose.
I invite you to reflect on the profound meaning of your answers to these seemingly stupid questions. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what to reply yet, maybe it is not the time. There are people who spend all their lives without knowing how to live. I raise my hand, I’m still learning.
If You Want Answers You Need Decisions
Whatever you think of your well-being at this moment, the difference of trying to set your life towards the direction of your desires or continually feeding the hamster in the wheel is simple: decision.
You don’t like your job? Quit. Do you feel uncomfortably toxic in your current relationship? Break up. It sounds easy to say, it is nerve wracking to execute, I know. That is the untasty medicine you need to swallow in order to see change: decision.
These uncomfortable changes will shape your life towards the direction you envision in your reality check exercise. Eventually, you will discover more frustration points to eliminate from your life, or more happiness points to be added.