Asking Questions

It’s become apparent to me that what we are taught all through life is how to answer questions. School appears to have the purpose of training us to answer questions. What do we do when we take a test? We answer questions and we answer more questions. However the real purpose behind learning how to answer questions is actually learning how to ask questions. Nothing comes from simply answering questions. Value in life comes from answering questions that you yourself have asked. For once, I sat down and asked myself why do I want to become a professional triathlete, why do I love swimming, biking, and running and why this?

                Most questions in life are easily answered but these questions I realized had deeper answers, answers I almost couldn’t answer. Yes of course I run because it makes me feel fit/healthy, and I enjoy the ability to feel like I am good at something, and because I see my work pay off directly, and because it involves going outside, and because I love competing and testing my personal limits. But the deeper question is what about running, cycling and swimming in its self do I love.  All the things I listed above could be things I would be able to get out of anything I am good at.

                The answer is a little disappointing but at the same time eloquent and beautiful. My answer is that it is in my nature. It is literally who I am. My parents have told me stories of how when I was little I would have to be walked in a stroller every night before I went to bed, about how I would crawl out of my crib and wonder around just for the sake of moving. Then I remember how I could bounce on the trampoline for hours because of the movement and the ability it gave me to be in my own head. I realize that I love movement and that it is truly who I am. It allows me the ability to transcend my body and to let the imagination flow. I become one with the spirt of the world and shed what makes me human for the wondrous moments that I am allowed to move. That’s why I do what I do at the simplest level and the other factors are external societal factors. Factors that are motivators not aspects of who I am.

                I believe a message to be taken from this is that there are things that are just meant to be. There are things about each of us that we cannot deny. They are our soul and need to be fed. These are the things we dream about and if food is the body’s necessity to live than dreams are the soul’s food. My other message is that while things such as being good at something motivate me and being admired is something we all enjoy. These are not real dreams, these are incentives. Ask yourself what is truly something you can’t deny yourself, what brings you surreal bliss even if you are terrible at it. This is what your nature is and this is where your dreams are born.