Why Your Mind Likes to Ask Lazy Questions
And how to ask more interesting ones.
“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions.”
— Sir Antony Jay
Questions invite us to explore uncertainty.
Finding the answer is not the purpose of great questions — the discovery lies on the journey.
Your brain, just like everyone else’s, is lazy by default. It likes to ask suboptimal questions — your mind wants an easy answer, not to uncover breakthrough solutions.
Lazy questions create bigger problems than the one they are trying to solve. By asking idle questions, we miss the obvious: the key doesn’t lie in the answer, but in the question itself.
When the answer is self-evident, what prompts the question to begin with?
Asking questions is an art — it’s about opening possibilities rather than closing the loop with a perfect answer.
Why Being Right or Wrong Is Lazy
We are not taught to ask questions, but to answer them.
