“Oh, call us when you get home,” my mother said in a tone that tried to be breezy and failed. “But do call us tonight.”
The phone call interrupted a rare night out for my wife and me in an elegant restaurant. It was clear my parents wanted to tell us something important but did not want to interrupt our dinner out.
That phonecall overshadowed the remainder of our evening speculated about what it could mean. So we finished dinner, went home, put the kids to bed, and then called my parents back.
“We didn’t want to worry you, but Dad has had blood in his urine,” my mother started.
He had seen a urologist who performed a cystoscopy and removed part of a tumor in the bladder. Although most bladder tumors are relatively benign as far as cancers go, my father’s turned out to be a rare variant with a universally dismal prognosis.
It would be easy to get caught up in all the wrong questions in a situation like this.
“Why is this happening?”
“Why us?”
“Why is life so unfair?”
And “Who is to blame?”
The problem with all of those questions is that they just run around in circles of blame and self-pity. To start indulging in those questions would not do my father and the rest of the family any good. This was not a time for “why” questions.
The questions we ask ourselves determine the course our lives take. It is easy to see this when we think of questions like “What should I do with my life?” and “Whom should I marry?” But the impact goes farther than that because the questions we ask can also determine how we think about our life’s’ events. And how we think determines how we respond.
The questions we ask determine how we think and how we think determines how we respond.
Asking the right questions can make all the difference.
After a bit of self-indulgently asking “Why” I knew I needed to move on to a more productive line of questions. Those questions began with “What” and “How.” As in;
“What does this mean?”
“What are we going to do next?”
“What can I do?”
“What is most important in this situation?”
And,
“How am I going to respond to this news?”
Those questions were far more productive because they got me out of a cycle of questions that made me a victim and on to a set of questions that allowed me to take some control of the situation.
I recognized that I could not control my father’s diagnosis or his fate. But I could control how I responded to it. By asking, “What am I going to do?” I was able to exert some control. Not control over the outcome, but control over my reaction to the situation.
I could not control the outcome of the situation, but I could control my reaction.
Being a physician in the event of family illness is a two-edged sword. It can help you to understand the process, but it can also slam you with hard reality. While friends and family tried to consul me with kind words and rousing pep talks along the lines of, “If anyone can beat this, it is your father.” I knew that no one beats this diagnosis. False hope would not be a comfort for me.
On the other hand, recognizing the diagnosis’s reality did allow me to make some hard but necessary decisions. The uppermost of these was asking, “What is important to me?”
The answer to that question was simple, to make the most of the time we had left. To ensure my children had the opportunity to cement memories of their grandfather. The chance to tell him I loved him and that I was proud he was my Dad. To thank him for all he had done for me through his actions and his example. What was most important to me was making the most of the time we had left. Ruminating on “Why” would not make that happen.
Knowing what was most important led me to a series of “How” questions. As in;“How can we make the most of the time he has left?”
“How can we spend more time together?”
“How will I tell him what he means to me?”
“How can I ensure my children understand?”
“How can I support him?”
“How will we face the end?”
Those are tough questions. It would have been easier to get worked up and angry over the “Why,” but that would have only avoided the reality, not changed it.
By asking “What” questions, I determined what the diagnosis meant and what was most important. Then I proceeded to how to act on those insights. I could not control my father’s disease, but I did take control of how I responded to it. That made the time we had remaining a life-affirming experience.
We went on family vacations. Bought silly wigs when the chemotherapy made him lose his hair. I made time for him to enjoy his grandchildren. We celebrated holidays together and sat in the evening, reminiscing over aged Scotch. I wish we could have had more time together, but I am grateful for the time we had.
My father passed away at home with his family by his side, just what he wanted—having known what he wanted made it possible to plan how that would happen.
Life is filled with difficult situations.
The way we approach those situations can be the difference between a sad tragedy and a life-affirming experience. The questions we ask ourselves at these times will determine which it is.
It is ok to ask “Why” when you get bad news, or something goes wrong. It is natural to do so, and you can gain insight. The important thing is to recognize when asking “Why” is getting you valuable information you can act on and when it degenerated into self-absorption.
The more productive way to approach these situations is to ask, “What happened?” or “What went wrong?” When you phase the question as a what, you are studying the events for useful information. You can make a list of what went wrong, what you could do better next time, and what you can learn from the experience. Phrasing the question as a “What” is more productive than asking, “Why?”
Use the insights you gained from asking “What?” questions to move on to asking “How?” as in;
“How can I make this better?”
“How can I not make the same mistake in the future?”
“How can I achieve my goal?”
“How am I going to proceed, based on what I now know?”
“What” and “How” can be powerful questions because they enable us to see the problem clearly and empower us to take action. “Why,” on the other hand, is a victim question as it often degenerates into some version of “Why me?” or “Why is my life so unfair?” Don’t get caught up in the drama of “why” to avoid asking the hard “what” and “how” questions.
When you find yourself in a difficult situation, take time to ask yourself “what” questions. It may sound morbid, but I purchased a journal for recording my thought after my father’s diagnosis. Writing down my thoughts helped me to see them more clearly and take necessary action.
Try asking yourself;
- “What happened?” I find it most helpful to do this objectively. “Just the facts,” as they used to say on Dragnet. A useful tip is to write in the third person like you are an impartial observer of the facts. I have started many entries with the line, “Chuck is thinking about ….”
“What does this mean?” The events in our lives are not just a collection of things that happen; they have meaning. It helps to get clear on exactly what that meaning is to you.
- “What can I learn?” All experiences are opportunities to learn, and we often gain more from negative experiences than positive ones. See these events as opportunities to learn and ask yourself what lesson this situation teaches you.
- “What opportunity is this giving me?” It seems hard to imagine that a loved one’s terminal illness was an opportunity, but it was. It was the opportunity to appreciate my father and to tell him so. We often think others in our lives are important, but we don’t tell them. This was an opportunity for me to correct that.
- “What is most important in this situation?” or “What do I want to get out of this situation?” This was the big question that made all the difference. Once I was clear on what I wanted, I could plan how I would make that happen.
After asking the “what” questions, I moved on to the “how” questions.
- “How can I make this better?” I could not solve this problem, but I could make it better. I could take advantage of the time we had left and make the most of that gift.
“How can I not make the same mistake in the future?” I had focused on my career and not spent as much time with my family as I wanted to. This was my opportunity to amend that oversight.
- “How can I achieve my goal?” Asking what questions made it clear my goal was to make the most of the remaining time. Early on, we did this with family trips, and later I visited my father at home. I had to keep asking myself this question because it was otherwise easy to get lost in all of my other obligations.
- “How am I going to proceed based on what I know now?” This question was the big one for me. I committed to not sink into self-pity. Instead, I would accept the situation as it was and make the most of it. I saw this as an opportunity to practice what I had witnessed so many families endure as I cared for their loved ones with cancer. Now it was my turn to apply what I had learned.
Conclusion
No one wants a painful diagnosis, loss of a job, end of a relationship, or other difficult situations to enter your life, but they will. You can’t control the outcome of every event in your life, but you can control how you respond to unwanted circumstances. The questions you ask yourself are an essential component in how you respond. Will you wallow in “Why” questions and take on the role of a victim of circumstance. Or will you take control of your life by asking empowering “What” question and then turning the insights from those questions into action by asking “How.”
The choice is yours.
So ask yourself, “What am I going to do?”
For more articles like this, visit ChuckBPhilosophy.com. And while you are there, download the free ebook Your Energy is Your Greatest Asset. Learn high how performers focus on managing their energy and not their time to get the best results.
