It was raining and here I am plucking red currants from the overgrown old bush in my garden. And as I was getting soaked to the bone, squishing overripe berries as I tried to avoid pulling off the ones that were not ripe, I asked myself: “why are you doing this? Do you really want to make more red currant jam?”
The thing is, I don’t eat all that many red currants, and what else can you do besides eat them? I have made jam out of them – and I still have jars of red- and black currant jam in my pantry dating back to 2012! There is only so much red currant jam that a family can eat before it gets tired of it and wants to have strawberry instead for a change.
So back to my garden: as I said, I was getting soaked to the bone and was in a rush to get done – after all the berries were very red – or so it seemed. It was only while I was plucking them that I noticed that the juiciest, ripest berries were at the far back of those bushes. So I grabbed at the branch that seemed to have the most luscious berries on it with the intention of pulling it towards me, but I ended up grabbing a fistful of nettles that was wrapped around that branch! Oh that burn!
So now I was not only soaking wet, not only was my bowl showing that I’d plucked more slightly-ripe fruit than ready-to-go-ripe fruit, but now I also had a hand that swelling and itching.
That’s when I quit plucking currants.
As I was carrying my bowl of leaves and more pale pink than red berries back to my house, I wondered what had just happened. It was clear to me that I didn’t want to make yet another batch of currant jam, yet I really didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to do with those currants. I had just seen them shining red through the leaves the other day and had it set in my mind that I needed to pluck them on Saturday. As today is Saturday, that is what I will do.
While I was trying to figure out what to do with the berries it dawned on me that I should have asked myself that question before I went out to pluck them. And you know what? That is when it dawned on me what the question is that you should be asking yourself about anything and everything! That question is: What question should I be asking right now? What question will lead me to the right answer that I need to be able to do what I want to do? Get what I want to have?
So instead of going out to pluck berries on a rainy day, I could have asked myself quite a few questions. Things like:
- What do I want to do with red currants?
- Are the currants ripe enough to be plucked?
- Is right now the best time to pluck those currants?
- Do I need to wear gloves to pluck those currants?
- Why do I want to pluck currants anyway?
Putting this into the perspective of everyday life is one thing (plucking berries) but you can put this into the big picture as well: What do I want to do with <job, person, relationship, problem>? Is the time ripe right now for <decision, action> or is there possibly a better time for this? What else do I need to think about before I <do, act, move> on this topic? And in the grand scheme of things, why do I want to <do, act, have, …> this anyway?
It occurred to me that I wasn’t asking myself the right questions – and that the best “right question” is: Am I asking the right questions?
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