Eat, Pray, Question
“Where are you from? How long will be you be here? What do you do?”
During the past six weeks as a Program Coordinator for a travel company in Bali, these questions had become as normal as the roosters crowing at dawn, eating smoothie bowls that look like art, and praying the shower water wouldn’t turn off unexpectedly mid-shampoo.
But to paint a bigger picture, Bali is a mesmerizing mix of backpackers, expats, digital nomads, and locals. I met people from all over the world; Spain, Croatia, Brazil, Java, New Zealand, Moldova (had to look that up on the map), and yes, even my college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
I loved the electric environment; surf breaks, coconuts, and sunshine meets entrepreneurial passion and a creative rhythm of life — yet, I felt as if I wasn’t tapping into the conversational possibility with these same three questions over and over.
But then it dawned on me…
I was asking the wrong questions.
So I started asking new questions, “What’s your story? What have you learned in the past year?”
And my personal favorite:
“What advice would you give to your 23-year old self?”
Here are some of the most memorable answers:
“Now is the time to start the business, quit the job, travel, switch career paths, to do the thing that scares the shit out of you, because the longer you wait, the scarier it’s gonna get, and the less likely it is you’ll do it.”
“Wake up every morning asking what you can do for someone else today, I swear it will change the way you experience life.”
“Don’t spend too much energy on the problems of the world that you can’t change overnight. Rather, let your life be a reflection of the way you want the world to be and therefore, it will be an example to others.”
And my personal favorite: “Wow, you’re only 23? You’re actually an infant, you still have so much to learn”.
These questions opened the doorway to a realm that people aren’t often asked to share, yet were almost always willing to. These questions allowed me to see a more vulnerable side of people, to see them as human beings with a story to tell.
And maybe most ironic, it seemed that regardless of job title or country of origin, there were similar lessons that each person had learned, even if in a completely different life context.
Are there universal truths that we all learn in our own way, in our own time?
This is my question for you.

