The One Question You Have to Ask

(This article is based on my TED Talk for DC Youth this year, which is a lot more fun to watch. I promise it's not too cheesy.  The link is here. The video is attached at the bottom.)

We have to start asking “Why?” again.

I say “again,” because as children, we used to do it all the time. Why do I have to go to sleep? Why can’t I watch a movie? Why is the sky blue? Why do babies look like their parents? That last one leads to a lot of awkward conversations, I know.

But asking these questions are important.

Curiosity is important.

Genuine curiosity is even more important.

We’re very used to stereotyping people based on the little things we know about them.

Often we know that this is an issue. We judge people based on the color of their skin or the clothes they wear. Then we feel guilty afterwards.

But more often, we don’t even realize what we’re doing. We make “content of character” judgements from handshakes, career choices, the way people walk, and our own moods.

This can easily be fixed. Once we know the answers to the question "Why?", we know people's motivations. Then we rarely judge anything else.

In a LinkedIn article last month, I mentioned that understanding is what makes people adults. But too many adults don’t bother to understand. Understanding means asking "Why?" and being willing to accept the answer.

Here are three crucial situations where we really need to start asking “Why?” again.

1. When making career transitions.

This goes for both the interviewer and the interviewee.

For the job-seeker: don’t get jobs if you don’t know why you’re getting them. It sounds simple, but most of us don’t actually think about this, do we? A lot of law students become corporate lawyers, for example, not because we’ve thought through the reasons for ourselves, but because there’s a lot of peer pressure to be “successful” in this way. Make sure that you know why the job you’re getting is working into your long-term plans and going to make you happy. Otherwise, don’t get it.

For the interviewer: do this work for them. Ask “Why did you leave your previous job?” and “Why did you get the degree you did in college?” and “Why do you want to work here?” You can find out a lot more about people by their answers to “Why?” than you can by their answers to anything else.

2. When figuring out how to accomplish goals or complete projects.

We too often assume that there’s only one way to get to our dreams. Instead of blindly following the “high-school, college, job, grad-school, job, marriage” path, come up with your own way. I’m seriously thinking about a music career before a political career, instead of a legal career.

I know that I could run for office by working my way up through the D.C. system. And maybe I will. But I want to fully understand the consequences of that path and what motivates me to spend years doing it before I do.

3. When making friends.

This is the most important one, I think. The only thing we have to do to break stereotypes is ask people “Why?” We tend not to judge our friends based on their sexualities, race, or clothes, even when we’re otherwise subconsciously racist or sexist or cloth-ist. This is because we know them for their motivations, dreams, desires, and reasons for being who they are.

But we often forget this.

You can discover so much about the people around you by asking this simple question. Ask people why they’re in college or not, why they chose their jobs, why they like their favorite movies or books, and why they’re dating their partners. You'll get a lot closer to your friends, partly because you have to share vulnerabilities.

After my talk was over, I had set up posters where people could answer one of dozens of random questions I’d written up, all starting with "Why..." Those poster boards have some really heartfelt and thought-provoking comments about love, loss, and hope.

Even “Because I'm too scared to do anything else” is such a powerful answer. I don’t know whether the person who wrote that was answering the question “Why are you with your significant other?” or “Why are you in college?” or “Why are you wearing what you’re wearing?” And yet I know so much about him/her.

So ask why. And when people talk to you, try to answer with why you do the things you do.

I think that’s a great start to building a more accepting society, getting more awesome jobs, and understanding people.

Isvari Mohan: But Why? at TEDx Youth Columbia Heights 2015. Special thanks to Kayla Mallery, the entire TEDx Youth Columbia Heights Team, all the volunteers and students who made the day possible, and the amazing speaker coach Eli Murphy.

Watch out for my upcoming post on “The 9 Questions You Have to Answer”!

#studentvoices

Isvari is a Staff Writer for The Washington Times, composes pop music, is a Global Law Scholar at Georgetown Law, and has worked around the world in national and cyber security law, astrophysics, particle physics, and politics. Her novel, The Eyes of Mikra, is about a spy with amnesia who's figured everything out about the war she's fighting, but nothing about who she really is.  Available, like everything else in the world, on Amazon.