As a kid, I asked questions non-stop. I have early memories of car rides during which I looked out the windows and posed a non-stop litany of one question after another to my bedraggled mom as she tried her best to answer.
Being an early reader eventually helped to quiet some questions. I could read STOP signs and such. But it opened up other questions. I must have been about five when driving along one night, we passed a large, brightly lettered sign that I sounded out, ”T-o-p-l-e-ssss G-g-rrr-ll-ss”. ”Mom,” I asked in alarm, ”why don’t the girls in that place have tops?” My five year old imagination was distraught that the poor girls were cut in half.
My firstborn was quite precocious, and also very inquisitive. She did something unique among her siblings. She created a catch-all word for any object that she didn’t know about. Her word was ”pumen.” When she used it she would scrunch her shoulders up around her little ears. This was her physical question mark to punctuate her inquiry.
Pointing at something she didn’t know about, she would ask, ”What’s that pumen?”<<scrunch>> For a while we lived in a world chock-full of pumens…and shoulder-scrunches.
Funny, right?
And Beth tells the story of her firstborn asking so many questions that after answering her for hours on end, she would finally have to tell her, ”Questions are closed” just to get her to quiet down a moment and take a breath.
I find that level of curiosity delightful!
You may have been the same. Or maybe your children, or grandchildren, are similarly filled with curiosity about the world, and they want to know EVERYTHING, right now!
But what about you? Now? Are you still curious to learn new stuff? Do you have any burning questions?
It is said of lawyers that they try to never ask a question in court they don’t already know the answer to. Surprise and court are not a good mix. Most of us don’t have that luxury.
What I’m wondering is this:
If you could know the answer to only ONE question, what would that question be?
That may be worth taking some time and pondering, because if you can nail down that question, you’ll learn what is REALLY important to you.
If you decide to figure out what your question is, pay attention as well to what it isn’t. I’m guessing if you’re anything like me, a lot of clutter that consumes your mental and emotional energy just isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.
If you feel like sharing your question, feel free to do so in the comments. Not that any of us will have the answers, but we may all benefit from the questions.