I Can't Tell You Why

I'm losing my blogging steeze. I'm going to blame twitter. I owe you guys about 3 weeks worth of Throwback Tuesdays and I'm late on this week's installment of The Series; we'll hit the reset button on all of that next week.

The Eagles -- great band

I Can't Tell You Why - Eagles
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I got my inspiration for this post from Damon at This May Concern You; I've linked his blog here before. He and Monica consistently come up with quality letters addressed to a variety of people, all of whom need a word or two to direct them in the right direction. Yesterday's letter was to "People Who Question Why" In the comments, I said:

This is reminiscent of a conversation I just had with a friend a couple of days ago. She kept asking me a question (”why” was ultimately the question) and I kept answering it, but I wasn’t giving her the answer she was expecting so she kept saying “you’re not answering my question…”

If you’re going to ask why, then be prepared for WHATEVER the answer is, don’t go fishing for what you hope it is or want it to be; that’s how mistakes happen.

Years ago, I remember someone telling me that one of the first rules of being a lawyer is never asking a question you don't already known the answer to. This makes sense; lawyers ask questions to make points, not to inform themselves. When I started thinking, today, more about the question "why" and why we ask it, it occurred to me that most often we ask "why" thinking we already know the answer. We're asking "why" to prove a point; sometimes to prove that what the other person has to say isn't true or that they don't know what they're talking about.

I mentioned in an earlier comment on this post that I have a friend who drives me CRAZY asking me "why." One of her pet peeves is comments with no explanation, but in turn she drives me crazy always needing to know the ins and outs of my thought process. One thing I can admit, though, is how she's shown me how often I make statements without thinking them through completely. However, I often feel like her inquisitions aren't simply her way of getting to the bottom of what I think, or understanding my thought processes. Sometimes she asks because she's sure I have nothing to back my statement up and she's ready to pounce.

I want to spend the next week monitoring how often I feel like someone's asking me to explain something, though they think they already know the answer AND monitoring myself to see how often I ask questions thinking I know the answer already.