The How and The Why

Wow! The light went on while in a debate regarding the use of the words “how” and “why”. While working on Essential Outcomes, Understandings and Questions…it all became so clear. Sure, I was supposed to be thinking about education and how to better our students, and I was but this became about a vision in general. The statement needing to be transformed into a question- We use reading/writing to connect and build bridges with others. The debate - adding a how or a why at the beginning. I’m so exhausted from the how; I'm tired of watching people act on the impulsive how am I going to...before asking why they want to and working on that. The typical answers are given with the how’s but ask someone why and he/she sometimes racks their brain searching for an answer. I am all about the why. We’re living in an age of purposeful lives and living in the now…shouldn’t we know the how and the why? In relationships we often follow the outline that I did in this exercise. We lay out our goals and plans (outcomes). Then, we share our stories, dreams, and items we might want someone to not only know about us but actually understand; after all we are a sum of our experiences. (understandings) Next, we have to ask the big questions to guide us along our way to reach our goals as individuals joining together as a partnership. (questions) I thought about marriage and how a couple could put all of their thoughts down on paper and figure out how it will work. They'll learn something about what and how their partner values them but will they learn why it’s important to them and why it will work or do they just know how it’s going to be done and do it? Sometimes discussions can go round and round and one does ask, “Why do I do this, why does he/she do this and/or why do I put up with this?” That may end up being quite a light bulb moment where the relationship moves forward, changes, or even ends. We are so busy looking up the how’s. Such as: How to make him/her fall in love with me, How to date online, How to know if you’re the rebound person, How to break up, get over, or find someone, etc. That’s all great but do we know why we want to even know how? The above debate ended in a compromise. The younger students need to understand how and the older students entering into the world need to know why so they can remember why it’s important in life. If we taught them right they’ll have the skills to figure out how. Later that evening it’s believed by some that this was a sign from someone above that I’m on the right track and to keep on going…I was handed a current edition of Reader’s Digest in the doctors office. In it was the following: " The person who knows how will always have the job. The person who knows why will always be his boss." I’m not sure where that factors into a relationship, you can decide that. As far as the debate goes, it made perfect sense.