The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: Why ask Why?

“No god is more demanding than your stomach, it requires a sacrifice every day.” – Yoruba proverb

Making meaning of life is all about probing the most fundamental mysteries in nature and in our cultures. There are a lot of things we do not understand about life and probably a great many that we will never understand in our lifetime.

We always have questions about notions and concepts on our minds. Some are interesting and some so boring they could drive you crazy. Some questions are about us, but the greater majority centres on the complexity of diversities that keeps life alive.

We all know that living is more than a series of eating, drinking, sleeping, working, enjoying, and so on. There is a purpose to it and questions play the essential role of inviting us to keep it before us.

There are many questions we face every day. Among them are those that have a profound interest in our being. The answers we give to such questions shape the way we live. Most of these questions haunt us, they haunted forefathers, and they would probably be haunting the perceptions of our children’s children in years to come.

Unfortunately, many of us stopped asking questions in our adolescent years, way before we became adults.

It is true that sometimes finding an answer to a question can trigger another and another and so forth; and that prevents some of us from even taking the first initiative. But the value of questioning is found mainly in its very uncertainty.

It keeps us on the alert and curious. If we do not question, we go about life seeped in our own prejudices and convictions, which could be erroneous.

Questioning is key for teasing out what people really think and know. Creativity and innovations are not driven by answers but by questions. Nothing can be developed if no questions are asked. And the continued existence of ideas and concepts depends on the generation of renewed questioning.

Without questioning, ideas and aspirations die a slow and painful death. Questioning assists us to see the inadequacy of misconceptions. They challenge us to piece together a more accurate understanding of that which we hold true. But more importantly they stimulate our thinking.

Like it or not, finding meaning is about asking the whys. The notions and concepts that inspire our aspirations are not always easy to grasp.

We need to use questions to break it down into significant details to help us become decisive about the acts we get ourselves involved in.

We need questions to deepen our comprehension of the issues before forming opinions and taking particular stances. Without that, our confidence remains glued to the floor.

We all like to be like to be good at what they do. But to be good at something, we need to ask questions. We learn by asking questions; it is the simplest and most effective way. We can only understand the needs of our relations or clients by asking questions.

History has taught us time and again that brilliant individuals never stop asking questions because they recognise that this is the best way to gain deeper insights about any subject.

And the great thing about questioning is the revelations they lead us to. It brings about relief. It is exhilarating to understand a twist of life. It carves out smiles on faces.

In our age where trends are evolving faster than the speed of light, most of us readily accept trends without asking questions. It is understandable to be caught off guard in a trend, but to wallow in its ignorance is a sad story.

Sometimes, the fast pace of change around us makes asking why to seem like a slow coach on a highway. But the reality is that questioning encourages and engages interactions to reveal the thinking behind the trends and aspirations.

They help us to visualise the challenges of the day in their proper conceptions and inspire us to construct more accurate ideas to eradicate them.

The fear of being labeled childish is preventing a surprising number of us from asking questions. It is so bad that in cases that we question, we only ask dead questions and questions that imply our desires not to think.

Let us call a spade a spade, superficial questioning only brings about superficial understanding. Is it any wonder we are producing very few brilliant thinkers. We have become the robots of our technological advancements. We no longer question; we simply want to be told what to do.

Asking questions drives our perception beneath the surface of things and energises us to deal with the complexity of situations.

They help us examine what we are taking for granted; inspire us to consider other relevant points of view; and they invoke our evaluative abilities to seek for truth and correctness.

Until we cultivate the questioning attitude, we will know so little of what things really are made of. When we are unwilling to question, we stifle our ambition for progress.

If we take the safer path of wallowing in our ignorance, then we will never know why, and this allows our doubts to grow into fears and immobilize us. The result is that we are unable to generate holistic solutions for the challenges around us…

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Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.

Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at [email protected]

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