Expository

His voice booms.  He puts a stake in the ground when everyone around him hesitates to weigh in. He asks the kinds of questions we’re all thinking; the ones we’re wishing we had the courage to pose, and he leaves them hanging thick in that painful, interring silence, the dead air where our minds are furiously whirling for a reply to somehow justify and validate all the effort we’re putting forth debating the “how”.  He’s simply asking why.

It’s a question we’re familiar with as parents, prompted by the innocence and curiosity of our toddlers and young children; an incessant game of escalating proportions, often culminating in a completely exasperated “because” when we can no longer find a plausible response to the chain plummeting to hadopelagic depths. If only “because” was an acceptable response in the life of a grown adult.

 

It’s easy to get caught up in continuing to deliver on the rote commitments we think our work and life demand because we’ve always done them or because they show up on the calendar or because we somehow feel obligated.  What if you were brave enough to ask yourself why?  And what if the response to the question pointed toward not doing that which you are programmed to do?  Could you actually stop?  Could you say no?

“Why?” can make us uncomfortable.  “Why?” can force us to look within, to not only understand but articulate an opinion or our purpose.  Conflict, dissention, hesitation, and debate:  These are the queues to hit the pause button and ask why.  This is how lives change; this is how the world changes.

I aspire to be him, to put my questions on the table for discussion, knowing I may occasionally need to eat my words.  When we challenge the group to think differently, we shape our organization into the place we want it to be; when we challenge ourselves to live life differently, we shape ourselves into who we are meant to be.