You know that question they always ask at job interviews?
What’s your biggest weakness?
And then you’re supposed to be able to answer with something that’s actually a strength.
I’m going to tell you a little secret. My biggest weakness is:
I’ve always been afraid that I’m the dumbest person in the room.
It’s why I read too much and sometimes even talk too much. I do these things as a coping mechanism to prove how much I do know. This is silly, of course, and I’m trying to overcome it.
Isn’t there a quote somewhere about how nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care?
I get it. And I do care.
The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem. Am I right?
I just finished John Green’s Turtles all the way Down. In the book, a minor character says something that would be easy to dismiss, but that is actually an important theme for the book: “What I love most about science is that as you learn, you don’t really get answers. You just get better questions.”
I love this because it’s a reminder that having all the answers isn’t the end all-be all.
When I was in high school I had this friend who would always call the Atlanta Library Help Line when she didn’t know the answer to something. (Remember: this was the early 90s. Google hadn’t yet been invented.)
“They can find out the answer to anything you want to know,” she would say.
And she knew the number by heart. We called it all the time. All. The. Time. I always wondered if the library line was the best kept secret in Atlanta because my friend, Ashley, was the only one I ever heard mention it. The two of us really knew how game the system when it came to those last-minute opportunities for extra credit.
As it turns out, the answers I seek now aren’t as straightforward as the ones I gathered back in high school. We get older, and our questions get more complicated. The answers are more gray.
I know this is true because my husband is a pastor, and whenever he’s trying to recruit new volunteers for children’s ministry, he always begins with something like, “If you know as much as a four year-old, then you are perfectly positioned to help out in the three year-old room.”
Everyone chuckles.
But seriously…
One of the things I realized is that every time we ask a question what we’re really doing is extending an invitation to share our lives with strangers and friends. Giving ourselves permission to ask questions allows us to live with a spirit of generosity. We are literally inviting others to see not only what’s inside our minds and hearts but also to accept their response without judgment or shame.
And that can feel really vulnerable.
To be sure, every great scientific breakthrough in history began with a question.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”—Albert Einstein
The answers to What if? are as varied and creative as the minds who ask it.
I’m glad I don’t have all the answers because let’s be honest, we all know somebody who is a know-it-all, and who we wish would just STOP TALKING already. I don’t want to be “that girl.” That girl is scared. That girl is insecure. That girl is lonely. She’s hiding behind a facade of knowledge because she’s afraid that when she’s found out no one will take her seriously. I want to be the girl who asks good questions, who makes other people feel like they’re the smartest person in the room.
Will you help me do that? Share the best question you ever asked or the best question anyone has ever asked you. What did you learn? How did it change your attitude, your perspective, or your life?
Let’s do this together!