Our everyday lives are full of questions.
We all ask questions. Everyday.
In this piece, I want to talk about 3 main areas we tend to gloss over when it comes to questions. They are not immediately obvious but once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it. These areas are:
If someone answers your question with “why are you asking?”, you've failed to give enough context.
To get an accurate answer from someone, I think it's important to first provide sufficient background for the recipient to understand why you are asking. Beginning your question with context increases the likelihood of a well thought out answer [1].
This is not just specific to questions but proven to be how humans behave and their expectations of others — People love reasons for actions even if that reason may not make much sense as seen in the Photocopier Experiment.
Another reason to provide context is that the premise of your question may be wrong but if you only provide the snapshot of your question, you may never know. You may get the correct answer to your question but it may not be useful if the question is wrong.
Corollary to this: If all questions came with context, then perhaps there are truly no random questions just tangential ones.
There are no stupid questions just hasty ones.
If we break down what people mean by "stupid question", what they really mean is the answer to your question is obvious or you should know the answer to the question. Indeed, when you are told the answer to your "stupid question", it suddenly dawns on you that you knew the answer all along, you just didn't take the time to recollect.
So whenever you feel a “stupid question” moment, slow down before you ask your next question. If you truly can't answer your question without external help, then it's not a stupid question no matter what the other person thinks because you truly did not know the answer or you had no means of independently finding out the answer.
Sidenote: Changing your mindset to“there are no stupid questions”helps you to be more forgiving. If someone asks you a question you think they ought to know the answer to then it helps to examine their motive for asking. More often than not, they're in a hurry and not taking the time to answer their own question.
There are questions only you know the answer to.
If you find yourself answering the same question to different people at different times then it's useful to write down your answer so you are not repeating yourself and in turn, you can refer people to the recorded answer.
You may see this on some websites as FAQs.
If you find yourself repeating your explanation to the same set of people, then it's helpful to write it down. Sometimes in the process of writing out your answer, you may find it to be confusing or unclear which could explain why people keep asking you to repeat yourself.
Admittedly, this is mostly useful for projects or work. You may find yourself repeating answers to the same old questions (e.g. “What is your name?”) in social settings or other environments. Referring to a written source to the question “What is your name” is pointless.
Antithesis: Repeating yourself in a work environment can also be good.
These are my experiences with questions and I find them to be a constant theme in my everyday life.
[1] Context can also be implicit. E.g. Meeting someone for the first time and asking “What is your name?” may not require context as the setting is in place.
Thanks to Akin, Ade, Olamide, and Sarie for feedback on this.