The Why Question
I am intrigued about a lot of Why question that we have while having a walk on this Life. Many people talks about this kind of question, start from Simon Sinek with his books Start With Why until Richard Feynman on this article.
Simon Sinek on his books said that we have to answer the Why question before doing the How and the What question. The famous example is the Apple products, the story about Apple marketing which put Why before How and What. And the result was Apple sold a lot of their devices at that time. And this why question which have to be asked for ourselves before doing things.
Different with Simon Sinek, Richard Feynman tells us with his opinion, that we have to be careful of ourselves when we ask a Why question to our peers. Because, when we ask Why, we have to admit that would be a long discussion. Why question could makes someone intimidated and makes his/her adjust the answer for us. But, interestingly, Why question could open up our understanding about this world better than before.
After all of those claim about Why question, I want to discuss what I found about Why question, in this article.
[+] Why question help you through the end to end of things.
Somehow that Iagree about Richard Feynman and Simon Sinek on this point. Why question tell us the truth about things from end to end. Imagine that you are in a system, the system that involving component from A to Z and all of its combination. A bit more concrete, maybe we’d like to ask our coworkers about Why component A should be exist on our system? Why we have to place component A besides component B? This question may lead us closer to the truth of the system, its behaviour and its goal. I recommend this kind of question for you who currently being a newcomer into a system (Junior Engineer, Fresh Graduate Student, Newcomer on a system). Because why question could lead you to an area that you are not knowing before.
[-] Why question may be an intimidating one.
Feynman on his article emphasize that when you ask people on why question, they will think about the answer and thinking deeply about the answer and your expectation of the answer. For example: when you ask why people with a fracture have to go to hospital ? the answer is really depend on who you are and what is your expectation? when you are an extraterrestrial creature, you might be confused about the answer of why people with a fracture have to go to hospital. Because we (the extraterrestrial creature) have no bone to be broken (hmmm). Why question, need a context, and to create a context of this question, is a challenge for people who will provide the answer for you.
When to ask why?
For me, why question could be good or bad question, because it depends on our expectation and who we are. With a great number of why question that you submit to people or to yourself, believe me, that might be a problem after you ask it for a number of times. People might see you are a freak and your question might be considered as a question to test ’em. When you ask yourselves a lot of why, you might be overwhelmed about those kind of questions, because this kind of question require a lot of time, context, and knowledge to be answered.
When why just gonna be bad question?
- When you are not ready to receive the answer / not curious enough with the answer (thus, you have to shut your mouth and ask a different question). Why questions need a person with responsibility.
- When the things that you want to ask is tightly coupled with your Life or things that a lot of Ph.d scientists still confused about it. For example: you ask the why we have to live our life? why we have to join a workforces? why we have to work under the other? why human have to live on Earth? why we have to eat? a few of that questions might be have an answer but when it don’t have one, it might be you are the answer (your preference).
- When why is just too meta to be questioned. Why question also need a context. We have to limit with things that we want to know. Have some emphaty with the person who want to provide the answer of your why.
Should we start with why to find a purpose or goals?
I think, its bit tricky things about Why question. But here is the thing, when I watch Simon Sinek perspective, i disagreed about his point that we must find our why, we must define our goals that flowing from why > how > what framework. I disagreed, because when I ask myself a why question, its just makes me overwhelmed (that was tricky). But maybe, we could start to ask why with a very limited context, before we leap to ask our life why.
Maybe start from asking why of our habit, why we always coming late to office? why don’t we accomplish our task ? why people is so addicted to Instagram or any other social media? breaking the meta-why to be a smaller why question is more effective for me rather than questioning our life, without getting better on the next day. Why need action to be resolved.
Finally, a lot of things might become a requirement before we ask why question to others or ourselves. Nevertheless, keep our curiousity about things and ask more why, while you can handle it.
