WHY?
I have always been a why person.
Why is the sky blue? Why do I have to go to school? Why can’t I stay up another hour? Why does rain fall down? Why do adults always say, “Because I said so,” instead of actually answering the question?
I asked why about everything. Not because I was trying to be difficult. I genuinely wanted to know.
Somewhere along the way, though, “why” stopped being a question I asked out loud. It became a question I asked myself.
Why did they say that? Why did they say it like that? Why now? Why me?
Eventually, I realized that was one of the most useful questions I had ever learned to ask. Because sometimes the words people say aren’t really about what they’re saying. Sometimes there is something underneath them—a reason, a motive, a little piece of information they’re hoping you won’t stop long enough to notice.
And that’s where my favorite why came from:
Why did they just say that?
That question has gotten me out of more situations than I can count. Someone could say something that sounded perfectly innocent, and something in my head would immediately go, Why?
Why tell me that? Why tell me now? Why phrase it that way? Why do they need me to believe this?
I didn’t always have the answer, but I learned that I didn’t need one immediately. Sometimes asking why was enough to make me stop. And once I stopped, I could actually think.
I could separate what someone said from what they wanted me to believe. I could listen to the words without automatically accepting the story attached to them.
Maybe that’s why I’ve always been difficult to manipulate. Not because I was smarter than everyone else. Not because I always knew what people were doing. I just had a habit of asking one very inconvenient question:
Why?
It turns out, sometimes the smallest question can change the entire story.
