Constructive Living, Session 6: Asking Beautiful Questions
“What is it like for my partner, or my colleague, to deal with someone like me?”
“Always the more beautiful answer who asks the more beautiful question.”—E. E. Cummings
Until we ask the right questions, we won’t experience the intelligent and loving answers we may seek.
In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis advised us that our behavior can change our mindset:
Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.
So, when you refuse to “act as if you did,” ask this beautiful question: Why?
Dostoevsky, writing well before Lewis, in The Brothers Karamazov, had Fyodor Pavlovich (we met Fyodor in Session 1) insightfully explain that his terrible behavior towards others was generated not by their behavior, but by his own behavior. Fyodor “wanted to take his revenge on them for all of his own inappropriate actions.” Fyodor “remembered how once, some time ago, he had been asked, ‘Why do you hate such and such a person so much?’”
Fyodor remembered his response: “Here’s why: he really didn’t do anything to me, but I did something indecent to him, and since then I’ve hated him.”
“Recalling this incident now, [Fyodor] smiled quietly and maliciously in a moment of reflection. His eyes sparkled, and even his lips began trembling.”
Then he added a very revealing line: “If I started it, I will finish it.”
Can you recall a time when you behaved like Fyodor? We probably don’t want to admit it, but in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky revealed timeless insights into the maladaptive ways our minds work. For good reasons, Einstein wrote, “Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist,” and “The Brothers Karamazov is the most wonderful book that I have ever laid my hands on.”
Fyodor luxuriated in his wrong-minded choices: “His most treasured feelings at that time could perhaps be expressed in the following words: ‘Well, since it’s not possible to rehabilitate me now, I’ll spit in their faces as if to say, ‘I don’t give a damn what you think of me now!’”
Yet, unlike Fyodor, we want to be redeemed; we want to choose again.