ask questions.

Here's a little quirk I have. Sometimes I'm afraid to ask questions. This wasn't the case when I was a little girl. I was the obnoxious kid who followed grown-ups around, asking, "But why? But why?" I was the kid who sat at the dinner table with the adults because I was far more interested in listening to conversations about politics and religion and people than sitting with kids my age. I had so many questions.

But that's faded a little bit in the last couple years. For a while I wasn't sure why, but I think it's because for some reason the idea ingrained itself in my head that questions = failure. If you have to ask, that means something didn't click in your brain, therefore you're not smart or you missed something. I know that's not true at all, but that's what was happening in my head. Asking meant putting someone out, making them explain something that should probably be obvious to you.

Tonight at work I had a million questions about what I needed to do, and I hated it. I should know what I'm doing, right? But it was one of those nights where everything in my head was blank. And I had to ask. But my coworkers were so nice about it. And as I was working, I thought long and deep. Why are we so scared to ask questions? I mean, let's be honest. Most people love answering questions, right? Doesn't it make you feel a little superior when someone asks you how to do something? I don't think that's a bad thing at all! Maybe I just think that at 24 years old, I should know it all by now. I should be able to figure out hard things on my own. I should be smart enough to know how to answer my own questions.

But how else do we form our opinions, our beliefs, our own answers? It's by asking "Why? How? Where? When?" Asking questions isn't a sign of failure or stupidity, it's a sign of craving more information, of wanting to learn. And that's not something to be embarrassed about.

So this week let's ask more questions. Let's ask how things work, why things are, what happens when, etc. With me?