Air - Raise Questions to Gain Wisdom

“Constantly formulating and raising questions is a mind-opening habit that forces you to have a deeper engagement with the world and a different inner experience.”

 

Some of the wisest men/women in history are known to have a habit of correcting themselves and raising questions on their own opinions. They question themselves, their peers, society and all the paradigms.

Unfortunately, we tend to repel questions which are targeted on us as they make us uncomfortable. Due to this we never reach a high mental state. We always feel we know everything about everything without actually knowing anything in depth. 

How does a kite fly?

We may have seen one fly or even flown a few in our childhood. But can you sit down and explain every detail of how it takes flight? Perhaps not. For the most essential things in life, we are fortunate enough to get by without actually knowing how it happens. All we need to know is that it happens.

But to become great, we need to be able to have a clear understanding of our profession or subject. By embracing the habit of questioning everything regardless of the source, we can avoid building on false notions. 

Questioning ourselves solidifies our understanding and refines our thinking:

• Ask questions even if you know the answer.
  • Ask, "What if...", 
  • this helps you delve deeper toward understanding. 
  • this helps you discover your blind spots.
• Don’t ignore "silly" questions.
  • Our mind rationalizes a lot of things describing some questions as stupid or silly. 
  • Answers to those questions are the difference between the expert and amateur.
• Catch yourself when you pretend to know something but you actually don't.
  • This is a recipe for disaster. 
  • When you find a question or topic that you don't know the answer to, make an effort to understand it. 
  • Don’t hesitate to seek other's help.
  
  

 

• Create and connect ideas
  • to improve your comprehension of a topic ➡️ try looking at it from different perspectives.
    • example
    • learning a math concept.. you can look at it graphically, numerically, statistically, etc. 
    • If you are running a business.. you can contemplate how your product/service will impact customers globally, in their day-to-day lives, etc.
  • Once you conceptualize the topic
  • take some time to connect those ideas to your knowledge in different disciplines
  • look for similarities in your everyday life or any phenomenon/process to get a better understanding of it. 
  • This ingrains the knowledge we have learned into our long-term memory and helps retrieve it later with ease

 

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