Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Because Why?

Why is a very popular question.

Just ask any small child. They'll tell you...and then they'll ask you...again and again and again.

As we age, the question becomes no less popular, we simply find other, occasionally more subtle ways of asking it.

And frequently, we're asking another person why they did what they did to hurt us.

However, most of the time? It doesn't matter why. Regardless of the reason, they did hurt us. That doesn't change.

Too often, we think we must know why, we relentlessly pursue the answer, and then find out that uhm huh...knowing why just hurts all that much more.

Perhaps we want to understand when there is nothing to understand. Perhaps we want our own self-loathing validated. Perhaps we want to ensure that we did nothing wrong.

Again, too often we find out that, in the perception of another, we did, in fact, do something wrong - possibly by snoring too loud, or by having love handles, or by talking too much.

I learned years ago not to ask why especially when my feelings were at stake. I took whatever happened as a reflection of the other person and went about my life, grieving certainly, sometimes for months...years, but always moving on to other people who do appreciate that, even though I snore, I also occasionally sing in my sleep.

And while I have had my feelings hurt, I'm much happier with who I am by not seeking out the answer to a question that will almost invariably hurt me more...an answer that is biased, subjective, irrelevant.

3 comments:

Diva said...

"Closure" is a lot like the plot lines on Fantasy Island: You get exactly what you asked for, but it's never quite what you wanted. *smile*

Anonymous said...

I honestly thought that I had let go of the desire to know why but it hit me Saturday that I had only pushed it down, now though I really feel like I have let go of that. It won't make me feel any better about what happened. It won't fix anything. I don't need to know his reasons. All I need to know is that I am happy.
PJ

Kristin said...

Get out of my head! jk - but really this could not be more timely. I've been contemplating the question of "why" in several situations recently, and have determined that: 1)the answer is seldom as obscure as I might convince myself that it is. 2)If trying to figure it out brings me that much grief, the true answer could only be worse. (love Diva's analogy, above) And 3) No matter how badly I want to believe that people are inherently good & kind, there are just some that are selfish, dishonest & hurtful.