The questions we don’t think to ask

We ask questions all day long.

What time will you be home?

Did you remember to call the doctor?

How was school?

What do you want for dinner?

Did you take the dog out?

They keep our lives moving.

But there is another kind of question.

What has shaped you more than you expected?

What are you quietly proud of?

Who has truly seen you?

What do you understand now that you couldn’t have understood ten years ago?

Those questions do something different: They ask us to pause. They invite reflection rather than information. And sometimes they lead to stories neither person knew were waiting to be told.

That is why I wrote Questions, and: Questions to Ask Yourself and the People You Love. The book can be used alone—as inspiration for journaling, memoir writing, or simply thinking about your own life. But I especially love the idea of putting it between two people: Open the book, choose a question, ask, and then listen.

Don’t worry about getting through ten questions. One may be plenty. Follow the tangent. Ask a follow-up. Allow a silence to linger without rushing to fill it. Stay a little longer…

You may be surprised by where a single question takes you.

Discover “Questions, and,” the new
book from Dawn Roode