I am on a quest today. I was reading an article on Mike Brescia's site Think Right Now that made the point that all thinking is asking a question and finding the answer. We either confirm our habits, beliefs, attitudes or we discover something new. To confirm this idea I also searched the Internet and found a quote from Anthony Robbins' Awakening The Giant Within.

Most of the questions we ask ourselves we are not even aware of. The questions happen very fast in subconscious mind. They have become automatic habits.

I needed to test this. So following Einstein's example, I created a mental experiment. I start asking questions. What else?  For me there is a direct link between writing and happiness. This is an activity I enjoy, especially if I know others will read what I write. Is this what I mean by 'The Meaning is You'?

Testing the Questions

For my experiment I wrote down a list of questions.

What questions do I need to ask if I want to write an article?

Are these questions the same as for any project I undertake?

How will the idea I am working with help me?

What is the idea?

What is important about the idea?

How can I state it clearly?

Is it 'true'? Can the idea be proven?

What steps can I take to implement it?

Will it help me get what I want?

Will it help me share in the abundance?

Will it help me get money?

Will it provide me with security into my old age?

What does it mean?

How does it affect me?

After thinking about the list of questions, I realized that the last two questions are the important ones.

What does it mean and How does it affect me?

Questions can be both active and passive. For a passive example, if you are watch a mystery on TV, you may be curious about 'who done it?'.  The question is not getting you toward a productive goal, except as entertainment and relaxation. It is fun and I love mysteries. Watching them is often a well deserved rest from other obligations.

An active question moves you toward a  goal.  The answer is an action with a purpose. For example, what is the next step I need to take to write this article?

If I want to earn enough money to retire early, then I need to make sure I put a portion of my earnings away where they will earn a good return. That is my goal. 'How much can I put away?' may be one of the questions. 'When can I put it away?' is another.

Thinking is either in response to what we see, hear, touch, taste or smell or it begins with something we are curious about in our minds. We are passive if we simply respond to what is happening to us. We are constantly seeking to prove our model of the world is correct by confirming our habits, beliefs and attitudes. We are active if we begin with a question and direct ourselves to find the answer. If we question our automatic responses we will discover that there is always something new to learn. If my response is I've done that before, then I need to question that response. Is it true that this is exactly the same as the last time?

Learn to Focus and Focus to Learn

This suggests a model for learning.  Do we focus on what is the same about an event?  Or, do we focus on what is different?

If we only focus on what is the same we will never learn anything new. We will constantly be proving to ourselves that what we already know is all that we need to know. We will prove to ourselves that we cannot learn anything new. We will be confirming our old habits, beliefs and attitudes. Living will become boring because we will never see what is new about a situation.

Any event that happens is new. Why?  Simply because you are at a different point in your life. You are at a different location on your time line. Your mind is comparing what you see before you with your memory of what happened at an other time. You are making the current facts fit the memory of something similar that happened before. You are interpreting this event to confirm what you already believe.

This is often the cause of both industrial accidents and poor quality. If you build cars and work on the production line you repeat the same steps over and over. If  you are not alert to what is different each time you perform the steps, you can easily be injured if the line moves unexpectedly or you can improperly attach a part if you do become aware of some change in the materials before you.

If you are driving and you only focus on the drivers that you think are doing things to irritate you then you will only see drivers that are doing things to irritate you. You may be asking yourself 'Why is he doing that?'

Just stand back in your mind and look at what that means. Why assume that what others do or say is intended to hurt us in some way? Are you trying to read their minds?  Are your  saying to yourself that they are deliberately making your life miserable?  In fact they may only be in a rush to get to work or they may have some emergency or they could be tourists new to this area.

A Successful Experiment

The questions we ask ourselves are important. They focus our attention. You first learned this process when you were very young. From the moment you were able to direct your ears and eyes to something that interested you, you began to make this process automatic. You can imagine asking very simple questions like What's that? and placing it in you mouth to discover if you can eat it. We call it curiosity when in fact our minds are asking questions.

Your mind is constantly searching for answers. It looks at a situation, asks questions then either confirms beliefs or tries to learn something new. You can simply let the automatic questions passively take you or you can constantly question what you see to take control of your life.