Pathwalking 211
They don’t have the answers.
Who are they? They are the people who tell you what is normal and not normal. The people who seek out extremes like black vs white, male vs female, rich vs poor and so on. The people who point out flaws, problems, things we should be distrustful of. Anyone who tells you if you do not follow in their same way you’re wrong.
I don’t have the answers.
The best teachers and therapists I have ever encountered were the ones who had questions. Lots and lots of questions. They didn’t provide me with the answers, they led me to find the answers for myself.
You have the answers.
Every one of us is capable of learning. Endlessly, constantly, eternally learning. Every single day we can learn something new, we can discover something we did not know before. On a daily basis we have the opportunity to experience things we’ve never experienced before, and we can choose what to make of what we learn.
Society likes to tell us what is normal. There are forces within our society who want to dictate that norm more than others. They will tell you they have your answers, but the truth is that they don’t.
Nobody but you have the answers.
How can I learn if I alone have the answers? Because you are asking the right questions. There are nearly no wrong questions to be asked in the process of learning and growing, though often we settle on answers that are convenient or that mesh seamlessly with the current culture.
Are you a fan of Star Wars? I can tell you all day long that if you didn’t enjoy Star Wars – The Force Awakens, something must be wrong with you. I mean, it was awesome! Now, you likely have your own opinion on this topic, and because it’s a pretty subjective topic I don’t have the answer. You do. You may not even be a fan of Star Wars, so you might totally not care.
This is a simple example. What about the much larger examples? What politics do you ascribe to? How, if at all, do you worship God? Are you sexually straight, gay, bisexual or otherwise? Are you a part of a ‘minority’ group? What gender are you?
Like the answer to my Star Wars question, these questions only you can answer. They can’t tell you what your answer is, though they certainly will try. They might tell you, “You have to be a white, male, heterosexual, Christian if you want to get anywhere in our society”. So what if you are not? Are you wrong?
In more cases than we often analyze, these questions are not matters of right and wrong. Right and wrong are abstracts that get attached to things and are often just point of view. Yes, there are things that are uncool and unacceptable because they involve the maltreatment of others. But right and wrong, good and evil, all of these extremes get loosely tossed around and things as such get mislabeled.
They will tell you that group ‘x’ is deviant. Organization ‘q’ is evil. They want to spoon feed you answers to how our society works because they prefer you NOT ask questions. Asking questions more readily leads to knowledge. Knowledge is power. They want to hoard as much of the power as they can to themselves.
They don’t have the answers – you do. You CAN learn from them, but you have to figure out for yourself if that information is worthwhile, or if it’s a steaming pile of crap. If you neglect to even ask the questions, how do you expect to find answers?
Which is how, I believe, we have gotten to where our society is today. We do not ask enough questions, and we readily accept “answers” at face value. But do we know the facts? Did we inquire about the why, how, what, who, where and so-forth?
Let me state that faith is not a bad thing. Why am I bringing that up? Because we need to have faith in things we can’t always see or touch. It’s a much larger world than the physical we experience daily. However, blind faith is not where answers lie. Too many people today accept at face value evidentially lacking information rather than asking questions to get at knowledge. I have no problem believing in things you cannot see, but when you only get your answers from a void of information I wonder if your questions are satisfying.
I don’t have the answers for anyone but myself. I do not write about Pathwalking in order to convince you to follow me or to do as I do. My path is not yours. But I do hope that in writing this and sharing my own journey, you might consider that you have your own journey, and that you are the only person who can ask the questions and get the answers.
They don’t have the answers. You have the answers, you just need to ask the right questions. That is how we empower ourselves, and when we empower ourselves we can create the lives we want. Asking questions is the only way to get answers, so it’s imperative we ask questions regularly in order to learn, to grow, and to develop.
What questions do you seek answers to?
GOAL LOG – Week 1:
Diet: I have been tracking what I am eating daily. Thus far I am finding that in doing so I am thinking twice before eating certain things I have opted to avoid.
Exercise: I fenced one day, hit the gym twice last week as intended. Additionally there was walking.
Writing: Only wrote two days. I need to pick that up.
This is the two-hundred eleventh entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.
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