Inspiration | Life Skills

Your Life Depends on the Questions You Ask

Never stop questioning

Bill Abbate
ILLUMINATION
Published in
4 min readAug 1, 2024

--

Photo by Max Fischer from Pexels

Have you ever noticed how young children can ask question after question after question, sometimes to the point of getting on your nerves? This barrage of inquiries comes from their natural curiosity and desire to learn. Unfortunately, much of this curiosity fades as they age. Yet, as philosopher Peter Abelard said a millennia ago, “The master key of knowledge is, indeed, persistent and frequent questioning.”

Never stop questioning

One of the worst things a parent or anyone else can do is suppress a child’s ability to ask questions. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence, and fostering it is crucial for a child’s development, so why would anyone want to stifle it? Sadly, many do, to the child’s detriment.

The author and educator Neil Postman observed, “Everything we know has its origins in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.” We must encourage children to remain curious for as long as possible. Curious children tend to achieve more in life, and we need more such people in today’s society.

The best advice I’ve heard when a child asks questions is to help them develop their answers or

--

--

Bill Abbate
ILLUMINATION

Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION, Leadership/Executive Coach, Author www.BillAbbate.com