While so many people in our nation right now are frantically searching for answers that will keep life as they know it afloat and intact, one man wonders this: Do they even know the question?
In his book, In Case of Emergency, Ask Question , author Lable Braun combines his lifelong study of philosophy, his affinity for storytelling and his ease with the written word to bring awareness of how crucial it is to ask the right questions.
“What we require in order to make decisions that are resonant with the Quest of our lives are questions that clearly frame the decision to be made,” Braun writes. “But, from early youth, we have had that ability trained out of us. Our educational system is designed to teach us how to recite answers, not how to formulate questions.”
And so Braun has made at least the starting point easy for readers by sharing the perfect question derived from his passion for Socrates and Hillel: What is out of harmony (and how do we restore it)?
“More solutions often lie within the nooks and crannies of a brilliant question than lie within a flat answer,” Braun writes.
So if you’ve exhausted yourself to no avail looking for answers in conventional places like networking, want ads, and financial statements, maybe it’s time to try another approach. Braun, a self-described philosopher who has spent decades as a corporate executive, makes the challenge to shift the paradigm almost irresistible.
What is out of harmony (and how do we restore it)?
Take a moment to think about that question. What is out of harmony in your life? Select from broad categories if it helps -- i.e., career, relationships, spirit, creativity, finances, organization -- and then narrow it down. Let other questions form organically. Then, thoughtfully, take the parenthetical part of the question and apply that. How do you restore the harmony?
Even if you think you’ve already done this, try it again, but without the safe, societal-pressure mindset. In our recent interview, Braun talked about the influence Plato’s "The Republic" had on him, and how in that work Socrates and his compatriots were in search of the good.
“[According to Socrates] a good society is one in which everybody does what they do best,” Braun said. “If you’re a shoemaker, if that’s your nature, if what you’re best at is making shoes, you ought not to try to be king.”
So how do we apply that now, in a nation with a flailing economy? Let’s say you’ve lost your job. You may think what’s out of harmony is that you’re unemployed. But maybe there’s another way to approach it.
“I’m not minimizing the practical aspects of it, but if you felt a real sense of relief when you were told that you don’t have that job anymore, then the proper question is not, ‘how do I get another one of those jobs?’” Braun said. “Because what do most of us do when we lose a job? We take the title of whatever we were doing and we put it into the answer machine. We get on Monster or some other kind of search thing and we say here’s what I was doing, tell me who else wants someone who does that. So the question we ask ourselves is, ‘how do I get another one of those jobs that I hated doing?’ Well, that’s the wrong question.
“If you felt a sense of relief, even in the furthest reaches of your mind when someone told you you didn’t have that job anymore, then you have to ask yourself, ‘what was out of harmony?’ And if what was out of harmony was the job that you were doing, then the right question to ask yourself becomes … ‘how do I meet my practical requirements and still have a job that I love doing?’”
Braun builds on the harmony question with these questions from Hillel: If I am not for me, who will be for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I? If not now, when? To further bring the reader on the powerful journey of asking thoughtful questions, Braun shares eight of his own in the book, including: What story am I trying to tell with my life? Am I honoring the humanity of all involved (including my own)? In my current reality, what do I need to let go of?
He wants the reader to think of those as a guide more than something set in stone.
“I’m not looking to start a new religion,” Braun said.
On the contrary, he is looking to bring old wisdom to bear on whatever emergency presents itself in our lives. Harmony has appeal to him because it is intrinsic. We know when it is out of balance. And we can always flip it around and ask: What isn’t out of harmony?
The right question can bring us answers that we never even dreamed of.
Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.
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