When Not To Ask Why
WHY? is a powerful question. There is enough literature that delves into the power of why, and into why you should know your why and start with why.
There is, however, one situation where asking why could be the worst thing to do. That is when we are faced with a personal crisis. “Why did this happen to me?” is probably the worst thing to say to oneself when faced with a calamity that one has no control over.
Let’s say you are riding a bike on a road and a boulder comes rolling into the street toppling the bike and causing a not-so-minor accident. What do you think would happen if you lie on the street wondering why it happened or cursing the boulder or blaming the universe? You could get run over by the next passing truck. The only course of action is to get up, pick up the bike and walk to the curb.
Simply stating, when calamity strikes first focus of fixing the situation. Don’t worry about why it happened to you. Just focus on what to do next. What actually leads us to the question why in that situation is a sense of entitlement and self-importance.
We seem to think more and more that the universe works to make our wishes come true. We forget the insignificance of our existence on the universal scale. To us, we are the universe. And rightly so. Our life is the most important thing for us. But we should also consider where we stand in the whole of the universe.
There are an uncountable number of events happening daily in this universe. If one such event impacts us adversely, does it really warrant the question Why ? The only question we can really is ask is What do I do now?
After all, the only thing we can really control is how to react and what we do in a particular situation.
