10 Laws of Life
Rule 10: Don’t Stop Asking Questions Instead Of Answers
In childhood, we have a lot of curious things
to discover about the world,
we often ask a lot.
Entering the teenage years,
we gradually receive knowledge from the world around us
and gradually shape our outlook on life.
As adults, many of us mistakenly think
that we have all the answers.
Some people even believe what they know to be the truth.
They use their own understanding to locate everything around them,
and see it as a weapon for self-defense.
Unknowingly, they have inhibited their own natural development in understanding the world.
All development is in the latent range,
what we already know belongs to the past,
what we have not discovered is still in the future.
Always keeping your questions wide open means setting yourself up
for a more developed future with new possibilities.
There is no stronger motivator than a question.
Because the question creates a stimulus
that affects the brain that makes it impossible to ignore it.
It is like an open sky for us to constantly learn and receive facts.
It’s completely different from an answer
– almost an end to everything.
Now, do you want to explore the world
with the big questions
or accept the answers as an arrangement.
Question that connects us to the world
Questions open the door to inquiries;
it’s how we imagine and explore new possibilities.
Growth doesn’t come from having answers
but from binding action around a big question.
Dan shared this story:
“Once, when I was nine years old,
I went for a walk on the farm in the cornfields of Ohio.
It was a beautiful and clear winter afternoon.
An airplane flies in the sky,
I look up and see it in the vast sky.
Suddenly, I thought to myself:
“How far can I go?”.
It was one of those moments
I will never forget.
The plane and the sky,
they were so big to me.
When stepping out of this farm,
out of this town,
traveling to other lands,
in the end,
where will my footsteps go?
That question became constant throughout my life.
From then on,
I kept asking myself,
how far can I go?
And I kept going.
Even though I couldn’t imagine how I would end up,
there really wasn’t a definite end ahead,
I kept asking myself questions.”
Questioning yourself is not an imperative for growth,
but requires a genuine spirit to create lasting inspiration.
If you really want to know the answers,
keep asking yourself questions
because it’s a process that moves you forward slowly,
even if you never find the answer.
Questions always open up dialogues,
connecting us to the world in a new way.
Dan Schmidt’s question,
what will he continue to do and where to go,
as a challenge he sets for himself to constantly improve himself.
These questions created just enough space to clear his mind
so that he could see things in a separate way,
without being influenced by other similar things.
As for the question,
though Dan wasn’t sure he would find the answer,
he knew he would learn a lot more over the course of his life,
including understanding himself.
When you ask yourself honest questions and find answers,
you are opening yourself up to new horizons;
Your understanding will never stop expanding.
That new knowledge can lead to another question,
and it can also open up new ways of acting,
new perspectives,
and new confidence.
From time to time,
people still fall for flowery,
abstract questions,
or ask just to get someone to agree with their point of view.
Questions that do not have a calculated
or predetermined answer content are positive questions
that encourage growth.
Never let go of the unknown Constantly asking
thought-provoking questions will help you overcome your initial fear.
If you focus on the questions rather than the answers,
it doesn’t matter whether you know the answers or not.
In fact, the best questions may be the ones
with no exact answer.
The questions themselves have a scope beyond the answers,
always open to all possibilities of perception.
They do not have a definite limit on common standards.
This means that each question itself has the ability
to continuously innovate.
At the College of St. John in Maryland,
where Dan used to study,
the teachers have a very new way of teaching.
The lesson was based on questioning:
everyone read a book together and then discussed it.
The most talented people in St. John are the ones
who can answer the question with another question.
Just like that,
the questions are constantly being dug
deepen the discussion more and more lively.
After two and a half hours of discussion,
you’ll hear all kinds of different perspectives you never thought possible.
It makes you feel that the issues you are investigating are infinitely vast,
the deeper you dig,
the broader its meaning becomes.
You realize that, no matter how smart you are,
you can never have a completely definite view
of a certain thing or phenomenon.
Life is created from different human points of view;
Everyone has the right to express their opinion.
Approaching life by always asking big questions allows you to create
for yourself the sense of discovery of greater depths
of meaning than you already know.
It constantly helps you to open yourself up
to all possibilities for learning
and increasing your personal contribution.
It forms the basis for all collaboration,
setting the path for good work.
Rule 10: Constantly asking questions
instead of looking for answers 115 more,
and allows us to have a deeper sense of gratitude,
love,
and respect for everyone.
A question is a form of consciousness formed from thought.
It always actively leads us out of the past,
towards a better future.
If we know how to ask good,
positive questions,
we can make our lives happier and increase our confidence
by turning the unknown into an opportunity
and a driving force for growth.
Big questions help us define our purpose and guide our lives.
Practice
Towards new things
If you’re having a hard time asking questions,
open your mind to new areas that you weren’t interested in before.
Reading a book,
going to a place you’ve never been,
getting to know a stranger… always has the ability
to give you a new feeling,
stimulating your ability to explore and discover.
Challenge yourself
When you’re talking to someone,
and you both have plenty of time to get to know each other,
create a challenge to keep the conversation going
by constantly asking good questions.
You can practice this with someone you just met,
such as a taxi driver
or the person sitting next to you on an airplane…
anywhere,
anytime.