What if?
From George Bernard Shaw Back to Methuselah -- 1921
THE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out of this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier skin. That is birth.
EVE. I have seen that. It is wonderful.
THE SERPENT. If I can do that, what can I not do? I tell you I am very subtle.
"When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'
In the last few weeks' posts, I've been unpacking how questions are necessary for thinking. Questions interrupt our reflexive (thoughtless) responses and create an opening to bring to consciousness what our brains don't want to think about.
Notwithstanding the Serpent's wisdom, "why" is a good start. It can help us understand how we got here. At the same time, I often tell people, I can't fix the past. I only have a shot at making the future better. And giving the devil their due, as my grandparents would say, "Why not?" is often a useful challenge. It's a counter to complacency.
However, "Why not?" has easy answers.
"This is the way we've always done it." "It's good enough as it is." "It's too hard" "It's too big a risk." "We've tried it before and it didn't work out."
"What if?" opens up our imagination. What if allows us to consider the possibility of something becoming fact, that is not fact now.
What if there is another way? What if we try a new way? What if there is an easier way? What if we risk bigger? What if we keep trying in different ways? What if we get help? What if we learn something new? What if we fail and keep going?
"What if?" is as hard as a question gets.
If we're serious about a "what if" becoming fact, we need to take an action in the direction of the "what if" in the next three weeks. Taking longer than three weeks means you already surrendered to" it's too hard." In my work, we've found that any aspiration not grounded with an action for more than three weeks, drops to single-digit probability of likelihood.
Here's a "what if?" Sometime in the next three weeks, dream a thing that never was, and ask yourself, "What if?" In the subsequent three weeks, ground it with an action toward making the dream a fact.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper