Questions call answers into being

Red Spiral by Joyce Wycoff

Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, offered a simple 2-step exercise on a Tim Ferriss podcast. 

1. At the end of the day, write down your most important question (MIQ)
2. First thing the next morning, brainstorm answers to that question.

This elegantly simple exercise can promote a powerful interaction of conscious and subconscious, sometimes prompting powerful results and even breakthroughs. However, there is a pebble in the stew.

Which Question?

“Most Important Question” is pretty intimidating. What if I ask the wrong question … or a stupid question? Struggling with finding the right question can waste a lot of energy. Try changing one word: instead of important, substitute interesting.

Just ask an interesting question, one you really would like to have answers for. If you really want to know why the sky is blue, go for it. However, you might find it more productive to ask questions about something you're trying to learn or accomplish.

One easy way to find an interesting question is write down 10 of them. Make a numbered list of ten empty lines and then fill in the lines. Find questions that start with Who, What, Where, Why, When or How. Don't worry about whether or not they're reasonable questions.

For example:

1. How could I find a mentor?
2. What would make me stop eating sugar?
3. Where could I find a puppy?
4. What’s keeping me from getting the raise I deserve?
5. When should I post on my blog?
6. What online course would appeal to my target audience?
7. Why am I not healthier?
8. What would make my writing more compelling?
9. Who needs what I can offer?
10. Where would I love to live?

Somewhere in the process of writing ten possible questions, you’ll probably write one that interests you. If not, write five more.

A second easy way to find an interesting question is to use some of these prompts:

Where can I find more information about … 

Who could help me …

When would be the best time to …

What do I want from …

How could I …

What would happen if I …

How can I make X better?

What would make X easier/more beautiful/ more fun?

What do I need to do about …

Who knows how to ...

The Secret Revealed

This can be a daily practice rather than a one-time exercise. Because you can do this every day … or even more often ... it doesn’t matter whether or not your question “works.” Tomorrow you will try again with the same question … or a different one if you find a more interesting one.

Once you find a question, write it down in a journal or in online note using Evernote or OneNote. Have that journal available when you wake up and write down ten answers to the question. You may wake up knowing the answer, and, if so, great. However, even if you don’t, write ten ideas even if they sound ridiculous. Ten minutes or so should be plenty.

Questions are the energy that calls answers into being. This process can be done anytime you have a question. Write it down. Let it simmer while you do other stuff. Come back later and do the brainstorming. Do this for 30 days and then report back about your results.

This is who I am: a 5-year plan at 74? While in a pandemic? (part 2)

Turn my ship around

March 31, 2020 - 
part 2

And then, came a virus with a vengeance. You could hear doors slamming shut all across the planet. Lockdown. 

Sudden change left our heads spinning and our hearts softened as we marched to war … the peoples of the earth fighting against something we couldn’t even see.

Uncertainty. Not knowing what’s coming our way is changing us, turning us back toward the basics, stripping away norms built up over the years of prosperity and gluttony … eating too much, buying too much, self-indulging too much. It’s like we have been sent to our rooms to contemplate our futures and think about what’s important.

My thoughts about a 5-year plan were caught on the edge of this tectonic shift. A plan implies that there is an X in the future that we want  to arrive at or achieve. How can you plan for an X five years into the future, when you’re not even sure there is a future or what it might look like? 

However, what we do now counts … it will create our future and who we become regardless of whether we’re in good times or in a totally disorienting pandemic. We can’t wait for calm waters to figure out how to handle our lifeboat in the middle of a raging sea.

The word plan doesn’t quite fit this during corona (DC) time. However, what should we call a set of possible actions or intentions chosen to take us to a different state of being? Thesaurus and I had a long discussion about words: pattern, picture, guideline? Nothing quite worked until I started asking questions:  

Who am I? 

Who do I want to be? 

What’s important to me? 

What are my gifts? 

What can I give? 

What do I want my days to be like? 

How do I want to spend my time?

Suddenly, it was clear. QUESTIONS. 

I don’t want a 5-year plan. 

I want a 5-year question.

Whereas a plan is a fixed, step-by-step set of actions focused on an outcome; a question would be a living energy constantly refocusing me on my “one wild and precious life” and what I want it to be.

Plans take  you to places the world recognizes as good: fame, fortune, accomplishment, recognition, a book published, a piece of artwork sold, a new title and bigger office, a spiffy car, an island hideaway, a marathon record, more followers on twitter. A question circles around our essence, inviting new layers into action, calling forth intentions that resonate with who we are, asking:

Assuming there is a future, 

who do you want that future self to be?

Then, the logical me kicks into gear and asks: how will you measure success?  What will be on your “to do” list? How will you know you’re making progress? How will you manage your time? How will the world know that you’re a good and successful person?

My head spins again as an old tune begins to play … “What’s it all about, Alfie?” 

Is it “doing” or “being”? I know that’s the wrong question. As always, it’s both/and. We are living beings who do things. What we do is either a reflection of who we are, who we want to be, or a negation of that standard. If I know who I want to be, I can judge all my actions based on that criteria, asking: Is this action a reflection of who I want to be?

Searching for my 5-year question, I write: 

What do I want in my life and who do I have to be in order to create that life?

It sounds good, but I’m not sure it’s THE question. see part 3

Clarity Comes Slowly

The Radiant Question

This morning is the second day of my concrete foam sculpture workshop with Fred and Donnell Pasion in Arroyo Grande.

I was driving south on Hwy 101 when I saw a bundle of packing boxes in the middle of the freeway.  My first thought was, "I need those boxes for my move."  I've been spiraling around the possibility of moving to the central coast. I love the coast ... I miss the beauty, temperate climate and activity.  Of course, I also love the foothills, my house and my friends so, once again, I'm caught in a spiral of indecision with clarity about what to do hovering like a cloud just off the coast.

My third thought ... the second one was how to turn around and get back to that free bundle of moving supplies ... was, "That's stupid. I could get killed trying to pick up a $20 bundle of boxes."  It's not every day you see a neatly bound packet of boxes in the middle of the road so I began to wonder if it was a message ... a message that basically blinked "DANGER" in neon lights.  

OK, so maybe I'm not supposed to move.  It's not the first warning signal I've gotten.  A few weeks ago, I was driving over to the coast on a road that sprinkles 55-mph zones along the way.  I missed one of the signs and, sure enough, got a speeding ticket.  Slow down.  It was a message I didn't want to hear so I plowed forward looking for a place to live, put two offers in on places and neither was accepted.  Slow down.

So, I put the move on the back burner until last week when one of the places I made an offer on reduced the asking price and I thought maybe it was a sign.  So off to the coast again, looking at a few more places ... and getting nowhere ... again.  I can't find a place to live that makes sense financially ... and the thought of moving again makes ice crystals slide down my spine.

Sometimes the Universe seems to playing flirtatious games ... beckoning me hither, showing me some of the wonders to behold and then coyly purring, "Not now."  If I were designing the Universe, I'd make the message system a whole lot clearer.  Of course, the problem could be in the receiver rather than the sender ... but that thought would be way too adult.

It all reminds me of Rilke:  (again)

I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear friend, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign tongue.  

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  

Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.   

Did Rilke have any idea of the patience this passage requires?

Toenail Cell Peace

I was thinking about my toes this morning ... more specifically the cells in my big toenail.  Our bodies are made up of 50 TRILLION cells, give or take a few, and no one seems to know what holds them all together or makes them act in concert with each other.

Think about it ... 50 trillion individuals with no obvious glue that holds them together and no police force to make them do their jobs.  My toenail is a small community of cells and maybe they all know each other or have a little electronic newsletter to keep them up to date on what's happening in the surrounding areas.    However, I bet they don't know that there are 50 trillion cells all collaborating to make my body.  They just go on their way doing their toenail thing, living, dying, making way for new cells.

If we step up a notch, we have 7 BILLION collections of 50 TRILLION cells walking around on this planet we call home.  Here in my corner of the world, we do our jobs and stay in touch as best we can but, honestly, we really don't know what most of those other billions of folks are doing.

And, then we look at the pictures from the space probes and it looks like there are trillions or quadrillions of planets and stars beyond our one pale dot and we truly don't know what's holding all of them together either or what kind of newsletters they're sharing with each other.

All of this brought me to the last question.  What lies beyond the planets and stars?  My toenail cell can't conceive of my body as a whole, let alone the billions of people on this planet or the uncountable planets, galaxies and universes beyond that.  What if we are just as uncomprehending of the total magnitude of the infinity as that poor toenail cell?

What if we truly are just one cell in an infinite ... organism, universe, consciousness, words are way too limiting here, as limited in our understanding of the whole as is my poor little toenail cell?  However, maybe my toenail cell isn't limited at all.  Perhaps consciousness of the whole is what holds all the cells in my body together and my toenail cell shares that consciousness naturally without having to turn it into dogma ... or blogma.

If my toenail cell can live peacefully in a community of 50 trillion, I think it sets a wonderful example for the rest of us.

About this image:  The Radical Question -- This image took shape while thinking of toenails and consciousness.