Asking a question very often can lead to confusion and uncertainty of how the person receiving the question will receive it. As we age and face what can be extremely difficult situations many people are afraid to ask a question that may be considered obtrusive. The only way you will ever know is to ask and let the person receiving the question decide how they want to handle it. By not asking the question you may be doing both of you a disservice. There are times that just a simple dialog is all the receiving person needs. Then there are times that asking a question can be harmful. The night I lost my dad after I called the time of his death a young nurse came behind me and asked if I needed help taking off my gown. Needless to say my reaction was not real pleasant. My dad had not been dead 3 minutes. Later that evening when signing all the necessary paperwork the young nurse came up and apologized. The thing is that nurse will never do that again. So it’s ok to ask questions because you will never know unless you ask.
As we age at some point is the realization that the most important thing in your life is your time and how it’s spent. In a culture that has become more and more crass in how we interact with each other the biggest single thing that gets ignored is how we waist others time. Time they will never get back. You see this often in grocery store checkouts lines. The first thing is when you step in line to pay for your items you know in advance that this is a participatory activity. How many times have we all waited while the person in of us front figures out a way to pay for their items? Then they get chit-chatting with the cashier and in doing so they are taking seconds or minutes of your time that you will never get back! When you tell someone that you are willing to help them what you are really saying is that I am willing to give up my time for you. That is something that should not be taken for granted. Life events often gives you a new perspective of time and how fleeting it really is and will be gone in a flash!
A few years ago after my second shoulder surgery ( and they don’t know what is causing the pain) I asked my doctor what he thought about alternative medical methods. He said the Chinese have been practicing different methods for over 4000 years so they must be doing something right. That mindset is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s western medical mindset. That is a good and necessary thing to be happening. Modern western medicine has the mindset of fixing people after they get sick instead of trying to keep people from getting sick in the first place. There are so many theories as to how to control medical cost. Wouldn’t it make sense to keep people from getting sick in the first place? Yet many Americans don’t want to change the way they live but prefer to run to the nearest ER at the first sign of illness. Of course the ER is the most expensive part of most hospitals. So why not at least explore other forms of treatment? What do you have to lose?
