Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want the Answer to

When I was a little kid, I asked my dad a question that completely changed me.

It was mid-December in Minnesota. Snow was falling, our decorations were up, and Jingle Cats was playing on the home sound system.

Spirits were high...for the time being.

Feeling a little Puckish, I said, "Dad, what am I getting for Christmas?"

Without missing a beat, he answered my question: "A bike."

I never expected him to answer honestly. I just wanted to get a rise out of him. Maybe see him pretend to be flustered and get a laugh out of it. Instead, I got the shock of truth. I ran crying to my mom, who admonished my dad for spoiling the surprise.

I don't recall my dad ever defending his unusually honest response, even when my mom brought up the story as an annual Christmas tradition.

But even without his explanation, the lesson of the interaction still stuck:

Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to.

Meaning, I could be curious all I wanted––nobody would discourage that––but I learned that curiosity comes at a price. I had to be willing to hear things I didn't want to hear.

If I ask someone a question, and they answer truthfully in a way that I don't like, that's not on them. That's on me.

It reminds me of an interaction I had with an ex. After several days of fighting, she asked me, "Do you even want this relationship anymore?"

The honest answer, I realized, was "No, I don't." So that's what I said.

It wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, and frankly, it wasn't what I wanted to say. But it was the truth. And the truth, in that moment, ended our relationship.

Much like my dad in that Christmas moment all those years ago, I still need to work on answering uncomfortable questions both honestly and tactfully.

But thanks to the lesson he taught me, I need zero work on my ability to take full responsibility for people's truthful answers to my difficult questions.

[Illustration from: https://www.bannaitaku.jp/]