Having Your Answers Questioned

Edition #118 — May 9, 2009

In 1993 I attended a wholistic event in Chicago. It was a defining experience from which I also fondly recall someone stating that: "You've come to have your answers questioned." I thought it was a great twist of phrase and ultimately worked it into my self help book, Reality Check:

As a last resort, have you ever dared to question your answers?

I believe this has been my one and only intentional act of plagiarism because I never heard anyone use that phrase since my return from Chicago. Seems like a waste, so I kept it in play.

Knowing It All

We live in a time now where everyone in the media is full of answers and rules and advice and authority. There seems little time to stop, take a breath, and wonder whether what we've just said is actually true. And really, when your job as a media personality is to entertain and sell advertising, then really, the truth doesn't matter. It's often just a coincidence when it occurs.

I think the idea of questioning our answers is a humbling concept that should catch on. After all, what could be more realistic than to reconsider our authority in what we are saying? I don't mean to suggest that we should submit to other people's answers to our questions in life - after all, they could have been sniffing glue. But it makes sense that if we're having a problem that doesn't seems to resolve itself, then maybe it's because we keep approaching it with the same frame of mind that created the problem in the first place.

Albert Einstein himself once said:

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

He meant that you can't solve greed with greed, or by making sure that you protect greed. You can't solve poverty with poverty, or by keeping people poor. You can't overcome fear with fear, nor by keeping people afraid. The reason is that our perspective is still the same. We haven't changed. And if we don't change, then neither can our problems in life.

Albert Einstein also said the following:

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

I can't argue with those facts. He was a genius.

Well, I hope you got a sliver of enlightenment from this month's cerebral stroll. As for me, I've been working on a final draft for my (highly unanticipated?) "Joy" book. I'm about 2/3 of the way through. It's a project I've been working on since Chicago, too. It's been a long standing problem to find the exact combination of thoughts and language to express my ideas. But it seems that changing my perspective has allowed me to finally solve the problem. Good luck with your own challenges. And see you next full moon.

All the best,
Roland Kriewaldt


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