I attended an amazing talk about innovation by Greg Horowitt last week and he talked about a lot of unusual things and at some point he said that we have to "master the art of asking dumb questions" and that got me thinking... I have the tendency to ask a lot of questions and that is annoying for others and also, sometimes, it makes me vulnerable... Why i said that? I don't know how is "normal" for you in your country, but in Romania every body assumes that you have to know everything and it is embarrassing to ask questions because people start treating you differently (like you are stupid) even though they don't know the answer to your question... I fully disagree with this mentality because if you stay in your comfort zone and you don't try to improve your condition you will not achieve nothing worth it in life... Although i agree that you don't have to work for the most important things in life like love or family, that doesn't mean that you have to wait for everything to fall into your lap... I am a fully believer in God and I am aware and grateful for all the things that He gifted me with, but I also know that i have to help myself in order for God to help me... You will ask now "what has that to do with asking dumb questions?" Nothing and everything to be honest...
Nobody is born learned nor knows everything about everything (or just his area of interest), so if we (as human beings and specialists) want to keep up with today's progress and evolve at the same pace we have to LEARN ALL OUR LIFE! "That's crazy talk!" you might say, because the only reason for what you go to school is to learn "everything" and after that you go to work to apply what you learned, but things are not that simple in real life... It is true that you are not obliged to learn all the time to be successful at your work place, but you have to keep in mind that being successful is something extremely subjective (what i consider as bringing success to my life is not the same thing that it will make your life successful) so we cannot measure success, nor personal growth. And here is where asking "dumb" questions makes a big difference in how successful is one's life... I used "dumb" because this questions that I am talking about are not really dumb question, but more basic questions (things that everyone assume that they know by default, but they do not). Now going back to Mr. Horowitt, he is a very successful man from many points of view (he started companies, he is worldly known through his research work and his book and more), he was extremely proud of the fact that he asks a lot of questions and I fully believe that this one of the reasons why he is so successful, what do you think?
I think that if you tend not to ask questions when you do not know something, you will start being self conscientious of your lack of knowledge and being ashamed by it, which will affect the way in that you interact with others, because no one likes the idea of being inferior in some way so you will start attacking and trying to put down people that know more than you do (funny thing this Mr. Ego) or start surrounding yourself with people that have the same level of knowledge as you and this for sure will prevent you to improve yourself... and this is how mediocrity starts developing in your life...
Mediocrity is such a hurtful word and most of the people try to avoid this word when referring to others or themselves. Mr. Ego will not accept that you are mediocre so you will start being aggressive or introverted just to protect yourself... And this is not even the worst part, which is that if you are aware of your mediocrity or of the one of the people around you (without pointing it out, just trying to avoid it) people will be even more aggressive because they will feel that you are judging them (which is nonsense). Honestly I do not understand this need of the people to compare themselves with others, if you really want to improve yourself by comparing with someone else you should all the time compare yourself with past versions of you and trying to become a better you. This is why you HAVE ALL THE TIME TO ASK "DUMB" QUESTIONS!
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