Little kids have a favorite question, I’m sure you know what it is: “Why?” They utter it constantly, perhaps a dozen times a day or more. “Why?” this. “Why?” that. “Why?” dressed up in a fancy little hat.
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Why are plants green? Why is the sky blue? What would happen if a bear came down from the forest and decided to go to school with you? Why don’t pigs talk? Why do kittens refuse to fly? Why aren’t there giant colorful gumdrops falling from the sky?
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Why can’t I drive your car? Why won’t you let me fly a plane? Why won’t you let me box up my brother and mail him to Antarctica?
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Sometimes one why leads to another, and you’ll get a string of inquiries all flowing together:
Why do fish live in the water?
Because that’s their home.
But why is that their home?
Because that’s where they were born.
But why don’t they ever leave the water?
Because fish can’t breathe air like you and I can. They have gills that allow them to breathe through the water.
They breathe in water?
That’s right.
But how do gills let them breathe in water?
I don’t know! Go ask your mother.
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Kids are naturally inquisitive. They want to understand everything there is to know about the world. It’s just as nature intended. If little humans are to survive and thrive, they need to learn all about their surroundings. So mother nature, in her infinite wisdom, programmed kids to learn from adults and constantly ask questions to better understand everything in their world.
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Sometimes you drive your parents crazy with all the questions. It’s like listening to a juke box stuck playing the same old song over and over again: “Why … how …. why …. how …. why …. how …. (What’s a jukebox?) Occasionally adults get to the point where it feels like their brain is disintegrating and leaking out of their ears. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Asking questions and being curious is a wonderful trait to have.
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Too many people reach a point in their lives when they stop asking why. They lose that inquisitive spirit. They’d rather spend their time trying to prove that what’s already in their head is correct instead of getting smarter by challenging these assumptions. They presume to have all the answers, thinking they already know all they need to know. Instead of wondering why, they cling to familiar ideas like a scared child clutching a teddy bear, fearful of anything new.
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When you stop asking why, the world loses a bit of its magic. Your thoughts become dull and familiar, devoid of any mystery. Your imagination goes to sleep and your mind is confined in a small little box. Those who stop asking why become pig-headed and stubborn, unaware of just how much of the world they’re missing out on.
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When people stop asking why, they start to understand each other less and less. In place of curiosity and inquisitiveness comes judgment. Instead of sowing love and compassion we breed resentment. Instead of being curious about what others are thinking or interested in the way they see the world, people start condemning others for not thinking and doing the same as they would. They develop the attitude that there’s only one right way to be, and that their way of thinking is the absolute best.
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It’s especially important to ask ourselves ‘why’ when it comes to other people and the hurtful or confusing things they do. This is something most adults don’t do very well. When others do things that make them angry, instead of wondering why and searching for explanations, most people presume to know the answer: She’s just bad. He’s just a mean person. She intentionally did that to get under my skin. They assume the worst in people, assigning them bad motives and thoughts that only exist in their own mind.
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But these aren’t explanations, they’re condemning declarations, and they certainly don’t help us understand one another. It’s much better to remain curious and nonjudgmental, asking ourselves why people do the things they do. You’ll usually find that other people aren’t as bad, scary, or mysterious as we make them out to be, and that there are reasons behind the hurtful things they do. We may not like the answer, and we might not agree with their reasoning, but the world becomes a much less sinister place when we take the time to understand the perspective of others.
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I’ll let you in on a little secret: People don’t get smart by presuming they already know it all and have all the answers. They get smart by keeping their mind wide open, willing and eager to change their thinking. The smartest people in the world are those who keep their curiosity and regularly make revisions to their thoughts and beliefs, adjusting them as they acquire more and more information.
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One way to keep that inquisitive spirit is to remember to always be humble. The world around us is so big, complex and fascinating that nobody could ever know it all. Even if you took a thousand Einstein brains, glued them all together, and stuff them into your head, you still wouln’t know everything. There’s always more to learn, and some things are simply beyond our perception, like the thoughts running through someone else’s head. It’s also true that sometimes the things we thought we knew turn out to be completly wrong.
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So never stop asking why … even if it does annoy your parents on occasion. As you get older and grow bigger and smarter, keep that curiosity. Keep learning, keep growing, and hold onto that inquisitive spirit. If you can manage to do this, you might just become the most brilliant person around, way smarter than your parents are. (Just don’t tell them I said that!)
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The end!
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