QUESTION

Question is a noun and a verb. A question is asked expecting an answer from the other end. It may be oral, written or through a medium of signs or otherwise. We cannot imagine human interaction, without questions and answers, in some form, in life or profession. Sometimes silence may be a sign of question or answer. We ask thousands of questions in our lifetime in various contexts and situations to get what we want or give others what they need. We ask quite ordinary questions expecting similar answers from others in much part of our lives or professions. That’s why we are remaining as ordinary creatures forever. There are many intriguing, inspiring and influential questions which we should ask ourselves or others occasionally at least to grow psychologically. I present you some characters and the questions they should ask themselves or others often. You may be one of those characters.

1. Individual

a. What is the purpose of my life?

b. Who is creating and ending this life, and why?

c. What is the importance of knowledge and skills in human life?

d. How should I play my role extraordinarily to make my life fruitful and sublime?

2. Employee

a. Have I the knowledge, skills, standards and values to expect, deserve and do a great job in a place?

b. Am I updating myself regularly to meet the emerging demands of the job or just remaining complacent?

c. Am I depending on my employer helplessly or is it that he/she cannot find a great employee like me if I quit?

d. Am I working here for salary, increments and promotions alone or to contribute to the happiness of humanity?

3. Student

a. Am I going to this school, college or university for spending time happily or to learn something great?

b. Are marks, grades and certificates important for me here or am I struggling to grow as an intellectual?

c. Is institutional learning meant for finding a reliable source of livelihood or for psychological refinement?

d. Am I studying here to improve myself or bring a dramatic positive change in the lives of people around me?

4. Spiritualist

a. Where is God and what should I do to reach Him?

b. Am I attaining spiritual powers steadily depending on my practice or sitting here to impress others artificially?

c. Why should I shun material life and struggle to see God, leaving all these temptations and attractions around?

d. What is the nature and power of a human body, soul and God and who can guide me greatly on this path?

5. Teacher

a. Have I acquired the required knowledge and skills to be a great teacher to all my students?

b. Am I working here for livelihood and comfort or to prepare thinkers for coming generations?

c. Am I updating my subject knowledge regularly or teaching something for formality sake only?

d. What are my standards and values as a teacher and is anybody learning something from my life?

6. Entrepreneur

a. Am I starting this business to earn money hugely or serve the humanity at large?

b. What is the positive difference my products or services are making in the lives of others?

c. Am I learning principles and ideals from my competitors or treating them as my enemies only?

d. Why should anybody work for my company, leaving all other employers in this domain of business?

7. Doctor

a. Did I choose this course of studies to impress my parents and society or serve all efficiently and kindly?

b. As a doctor, am I worrying about money I am earning or the quality of service I am offering to my patients?

c. Are patients treating me like a commercial and artificial bloke or one with great healing and consoling powers?

d. How can I alleviate physical and psychological pains in my patients within a short time with limited resources?

8. Lawyer

a. Did I study law to save the good from the bad or to present a criminal as an innocent one somehow?

b. Am I learning and arguing my cases based on those laws only or depending on my active conscience often?

c. What is the image of a lawyer or judge in the contemporary society and why did it happen till now?

d. Am I cheating my clients regularly arguing useless cases or guiding them towards right path honestly?

9. Devotee

a. If God is omnipresent and omnipotent, why should I struggle to promote Him in every place or occasion?

b. Am I going to a temple, mosque or church to tell lies addressing God or to beg Him to guide me in the right path?

c. Does God like my following formalities in life or understanding and serving the helpless kindly and ideally?

d. Am I appearing religious or spiritual to attract others or to represent my true character in this position and dress?

10. Scientist

a. Is science a part of God and religion or that religion and God can be created through scientific methods?

b. Was this universe created from nothing or from something and who created that something initially?

c. Can science explain everything in this universe based on cause and effect theory?

d. Can science add comfort only to humanity or transform them from beasts to humanists, idealists and thinkers?

11. Politician

a. Have I become a politician to serve the poor and the helpless or to cheat them exploiting the anarchy here?

b. Does politics mean tricks and gimmicks or establishing and following standards and values for welfare of all?

c. Are people appreciating me because I am a powerful politician or because I did something great for them?

d. If people are equal to God, why am I appearing and living as a greater one than them, publicly or privately?

12. Artist

a. Am I living and working to satisfy the artist in me or changing myself continuously to earn faster?

b. Is my art guiding the people in the right path or bringing them into a wrong path artificially?

c. Does anybody suffer or die in this world if I shun this art field completely and live doing something else?

d. Am I continuing in this art path for my comforts and benefits or to help the humanity magnanimously?

13. Police

a. Are victims and people treating us like unscrupulous blokes or custodians of law and order?

b. What wonders are we doing to bring peace and order into the lives of people in our jurisdiction?

c. Are we treating all kinds of people and victims alike or rich and influential ones differently?

d. Are we struggling to uphold the rights and opportunities of the people or torturing them regularly?

14. Regulatory authorities

a. Are we ensuring whether everything is perfect in our domain or just passing time enjoying our sinecures?

b. Did we get into this profession for good reputation and earning opportunity or to discipline systems and people?

c. Are we servants of people? If yes, are we thinking and working honestly to solve their problems regularly?

d. Are we following the established norms 100% always or violating them often as there is nobody to question?

15. Businessman

a. Is business a source of profits for me or a way of understanding and meeting the demands of humanity at large?

b. Am I doing what is profitable for me always or something good for anybody that buys what I offer?

c. Am I educating my customers speaking truths frankly or cheating them nicely telling them beautiful lies?

d. Am I doing this business transparently and legally completely, or concealing many bitter realities smartly?

16. Lover

a. Am I in love with her because she is physically attractive or is it because I love her character mostly?

b. Do I have the same kind of love, affection, care and respect for her rest of the life or is it just a desire?

c. Am I telling her lies to impress her and acting smart to make her believe that I am more than what I am really?

d. Is it an accident that I loved her or is it that I am making this choice deliberately after careful thoughts about it?

17. Husband

a. Am I treating my wife like a great guest in my life whom I should always treat with sensitivity and empathy?

b. Has she completely changed to suit my desires and preferences and is she thinking and behaving like my servant?

c. Am I struggling regularly to compromise and sacrifice many things in my life to be her ideal husband?

d. Is this relationship a formality for me or am I building and depending on it with wholehearted devotion?

18. Wife

a. Am I impressing him with my bodily features and attractions only or with highly appreciable thoughts also?

b. Am I happy with him because he is offering me a safe and secure life or is he more than that in many respects?

c. Am I controlling my desires and fantasies according to his abilities and realities or crossing those limits often?

d. What am I doing regularly, often or rarely at least to make him realize that he is very vital in my life?

19. Friend

a. Why should my familiar folks treat me as an extraordinary friend in many respects?

b. Am I maintaining my circle of friends because they came my way or have I chosen them because they are great?

c. Are we friends thinking and acting differently from others to bring a great change in the lives of others?

d. How many of us are willing to do something great for the sake of others in our circle, when they are suffering?

20. Celebrity

a. Are many admiring and following me because I am doing something great for many on my own or is it madness?

b. Am I struggling to gain and retain this status of celebrity or has it all happened naturally over the years?

c. What is my personal contribution to bring comfort, benefit or happiness into the lives of others in this world?

d. Are others acting before me to make me believe that they love and admire me or is it just acting by all?

21. Professional

a. Is this profession really needed in this world? If yes, why should anybody enter and continue this profession?

b. Did I choose this profession because it gives me money, comfort and status or because I deserve it 100%?

c. Am I doing many artificial and immoral things to promote myself in this profession or am I genius?

d. Am I this professional because I have a lot of related knowledge and skills or am I just acting this role well?

22. Journalist

a. What is the positive change I am bringing in the lives of people through my intellectual and creative contribution?

b. Am I asking others such questions which are relevant and needed or just those which they can answer easily?

c. Am I following those standards and values which I am advocating and propagating through my contributions?

d. Am I learning and improving myself continuously to comment on contemporary issues authoritatively?

Kids question a lot when they are at school. Enthusiasm, passion for knowledge and skills, circumstances often guide us towards questioning what is given and encourage us towards doing something great for ourselves or others. Questioning implies dynamism, critical analysis of given things, planning for future, perfect assessment of the current situation and a strong desire to elicit the best inputs from others to achieve something great collectively.

If you are not questioning yourself, anybody or anything around you, it means you are suffering with one or many disorders and demerits. If you stop questioning, you stop changing. Assess yourself in the following way.

1. You believe that you are unable to change yourself, anybody or anything around you, despite your best efforts. You are accepting that you are a buffoon, idiot, rogue, scoundrel and criminal. If you are unable to contribute anything to your life or others, in your lifetime, yours is a useless position in this world. Shame on you.

2. You are so lazy and complacent that you expect others to do something great for you and others. Change requires questioning the given things. You should know what is wrong now and what is right to be done there to make it into a better atmosphere, culture, situation or condition.If you are not innovative and creative, you cannot question well.

3. Whatever change and advancement we are observing now in our lives, societies, companies, countries and other places across the world, is all due to the questioning attitude of those inventors, scientists, pioneers, freedom fighters, philanthropists, social reformers, mentors, visionaries, martyrs and others. Questioning greatly is a virtue.

4. Questioning attitude and orientation of life often pushes one towards thinking better and acting differently to bring a marvelous change in all constructively. They don’t remain satisfied with the existing development and contemporary scenario around them. They want more. They think more. They struggle more. They achieve more.

5. To take the best decision in a context, to benefit yourself or others substantially, you should ask a series of interrelated and logical questions one after the other until you arrive at the best choice of all available. Questions direct you towards analytical thinking, logical planning, constructive efforts and ideal pursuits in the long run.

6. Some questions may be very long but answers would be short. Some questions may be very short but they expect us to answer comprehensively, extending it to many answer sheets or discussion on it for hours together. What is life? One may need to write one’s autobiography in 500 pages to answer this short question.

7. Asking questions is easy but answering them is difficult, very difficult or impossible. Can you answer these questions? Where is God? When do you die? How do you live? Are your parents good? How much money do you want to live happily forever? Do you love your wife or your mother the most? Can you awake a dead man?

8. Questions often irritate, insult, inspire, scare or console you. Do you have discipline at all? Don’t you know this much also being chairman of such a big company? Can’t you think innovatively and act bravely to achieve something great? What do you do if we fire you right now? Don’t you know that everybody is suffering around you?

9. Questions chase us silently in our life or profession. We may not be able to answer them but we feel their pressure almost every day and night. Am I living up to the expectations of my wife, parents, children, society and nation? Am I helplessly depending on this employer or is he relying on my supreme knowledge and skills? Who am I?

10. To know about others, mostly we depend on questions. We cannot imagine a formal interview or interaction between unfamiliar ones, without questions. Questions demand answers. Answers satisfy our ignorance, innocence, curiosity or ego. Questioning softly and impartially elicits better and constructive answers in many contexts.

11. We rely on questions for evaluation of standards and values of others. We conduct many tests and examinations to assess the status and talent of different kinds of learners and students at many stages of their lives and professions. Question means expectation and authority. One answering it mostly accepts and follows the other submissively.

12. We can use questions to improve our knowledge and skills continuously. Ask, when in doubt about something or somebody, the right one. Don’t ask silly questions to pass your time. One that questions intelligently keeps a boss, a society, a race or a religion active and ideal. If you don’t question, fools rule you and idiots make fun of you.

Questioning for formality sake keeps you outdated. Questioning out of burning curiosity to change yourself or others makes you and others dynamic and visionary. Questioning to know the unknown and continuous internal struggle to define, describe and reorient yourself towards brighter paths of personal and spiritual growth makes you into a wizard of wonders and achievements. What you question and how you answer others shows what you are really. Question often for self-analysis, self-criticism and self-reformation. If you fear questions, you block your growth.