Creative questioning: The antidote to mental laziness.
There is so much background chatter in our lives today that it’s easy to get mentally lazy. Why bestir our brain cells when it takes less effort to accept what people tell us than it does to ask questions, review facts, and make our own decisions?
I want to fight this tendency. When we disengage our critical thinking skills, we become vulnerable to people and corporations who try to influence us to buy their products or support their causes. We give up our power to shape the world. I believe we need to get it back.
But how can we jumpstart our brains out of their intellectual inertia?
Practice creative questioning.
Come up with questions you’ve never heard anyone ask before, and then start asking them. You can’t be mentally lazy when you’re twisting your brain just a little bit sideways, looking at everyday situations from a different perspective to find new questions to ask. The bonus is that the questions don’t have to be serious or confrontational. Make your mental exercise fun!
When you ask people your new questions, you’ll be encouraging other people to exercise their brains, too. You’ll see the gears in their heads shift when they have to think new thoughts. They may not be able to come up with answers, but you can be sure they expended mental energy that would have otherwise gone unused.
Some pre-tested sample questions.
Not convinced? I’ve listed a few of my own new questions below. Feel free to try them out. Once you see how much fun creative questioning can be, you’ll want to put your mental sneakers and come up with your own.
To my dentist after he explained that the bone for my dental implant could be bovine or cadaver bone:
Does the cadaver bone come from one person or is it a mixture? And how can I be sure I won’t get bone from an ax murderer?
Chatting with the clerk in the checkout line at the grocery store:
Do you think this amount of toilet paper goes with this amount of food?
Posted on social media:
What three things do you not what to see in the checkout lane at the same time?
Please share your new questions with me. I’d love to see what you come up with!
