I read stuff- lots of it. Some days I think I read too much! Certainly I read too much rubbish.
But then a short article really gets me thinking- like this article, which I read by way of a post on Google Plus.
The premise is that we don't ask "Why" often enough. Little kids ask that question all the time and drive us crazy with it.
But it has a wonderful way of getting to the root of a problem. If we ask "Why?" five times a whole lot of insights can come out.
A simple example:
Problem: The living room is dark.
1st Why: Why is the room dark? Because the light bulbs are not working
2nd Why:Why are the light bulbs not working? Because the light bulbs are dead and burned out
3rd Why: Why are the light bulbs dead? Because the light bulbs are old and should have been replaced
4th Why: Why are the light bulbs old? Because we didn’t know that they needed to be replaced
5th Why: Why don't we know they need to be replaced? (root cause): Because we don’t have a way to track how old the light bulbs are
Of course this method assumes a fairly simple solution to each why, and the danger is that we might reduce a complex problem to something overly simplistic and then miss the real root cause of a problem. For example it might be useful to ask "why is this man sleeping in the park?" but less useful to ask the more general question of "why do people sleep outdoors?"
On the other hand it might be useful to ask 5 Why's of many of our common practices:
1. Why should I pray? Because God tells us to.
2. Why? Because He likes us to talk with Him and listen to Him.
3. Why? Because that's how we have a relationship.
4. Why? Because God loves me?
5. Why? Because God IS love.
Suddenly prayer is changed from a ritual to a celebration of God's nature!
You can ask the 5 why's of almost any situation and discover life-changing insights.
Why am I in this job?
Why do I vote Labor/ National/ other?
Why do I put the garbage out on Tuesday evening?
Ask "Why?" 5 times.
New Life Narrabri 