The Five Thousand Dollar Question

I’ve lived with Bob long enough to value the importance of good questions. They can make or break any deal, they steer conversations off-course or into fertile waters. Yet, as long as I’ve watched Bob hit the target with artfully-posed questions, the right questions do not naturally compose themselves in my brain.

As the baby in the family, Bob learned to ask questions in the same way I, the oldest became good at making assertions. In order to lead the pack, I needed to speak in certainties. “Not always right, but never in doubt,” we joke. My questions sound like statements and Bob’s statements sound like questions. Bob is also never in doubt, but with a subtle twist. He usually knows the answer to the questions he’s posing, or at least his version of the answer. I’ll say, “That’s a boat-tailed grackle” as opposed to Bob’s “Is that a boat-tailed grackle?”

Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before and The Happiness Project devised a neat quiz to help determine our behavioral tendencies:
Upholders – people who get up in the morning and ask themselves “What’s on my list for today?” They are motivated by internal and external expectations.
Questioners, who ask, “Is there anything I really have to do today?” They require good reasons for a particular course of action.
Rebels wonder “What do I want to do today?” They respond to internal expectations and are motivated by a sense of freedom.
Obligers ask “What must I do today?” They are motivated by accountability to others.

I’m an Upholder if you haven’t already guessed, and Bob is a questioner. Here’s a typical exchange: “What are you up to today?” “I’m doing this and that, and need to do such and such.” “Can’t you put that off until tomorrow?” “Yes, but…” I’ve set my mind on what all I need to do, and Bob tries to help me by talking me out of some of it.

Last year I decided to seek help for pain in my left foot that I first noticed in 2013. I suspected a stone bruise, but after weeks without respite I linked it to my growing collection of varicose veins. I had been spending six hours a day doing housework and preparing meals barefoot on concrete terrazzo in Africa. A cursory examination by a visiting medical student supported my theory.

Two years later, I worked up the courage to visit a vascular surgeon. In hindsight, I should have brought Bob with me. I filled out a questionnaire, and spoke with the examiner at length, beginning with the story about my foot. I told her that I began wearing compression stockings at that time and they alleviated the pain, supporting my suspicion that veins were the underlying problem.

“We can fix your veins,” was the prognosis. For a $5,000 co-pay. Bob and I decided to liquidate my IRA to pay for the procedure. I never asked anyone if closing the four exterior veins in my legs would address the pain in my foot. I assumed fixing my veins would do the trick, that the veins in my leg were letting pressure accumulate in my foot, and that the examiner had heard me when I described my problem. You know what they saw about assuming. “Never assume anything. It makes an ass out of u and me.”

It took months of healing before I stopped wearing the surgical stockings and a week later the pain in my foot reappeared. “What the…?!” I went back to wearing knee highs, unable to face the awful truth. Finally I mustered the courage to meet with the physician. He examined my foot and said, “This is not a vascular issue.” He read the notes on my chart from the initial consultation. There were my answers to the questionnaire with some notes from the consultation. No mention of my foot. He suggested I see a podiatrist.

The good news? My legs look great, right down to my ankles. And the dull ache in my foot is a constant reminder of the importance of asking the right question.