It wasn’t the kind of parting line you’d expect from an ex-Marine who served in Iraq.
As with many good jokes, some context is required.
I’ve been batting 1000 these days, at least when it comes to hiring Taskrabbits.
First, Vladimir, an extraordinary packer, and now Eric, a young veteran I hired to add an extra level of organization to my new storage space.
Vladimir and Erik, along with head mover Omar, were deeply impressed with my penchant for printed labels on every box detailing its contents.
As you’ll see in the photo below, I’ve not only numbered every box of books in my library, but also organized them by genre and, within that structure, alphabetically by author.
Erik and I worked exceptionally well together, optimizing the space beyond my wildest expectations.
A telling detail of his excellence and preparedness was that, having done this kind of thing before, he arrived with a hard hat equipped with a headlamp.
When we finished, I thanked him profusely, and he responded in kind.
Given that we were the only people for a few hours in this dark and frankly eerie space late at night—one that required multiple security codes to open the drive-through gate and then the building itself—Erik, the ex-Marine, added:
“And Thank You for not murdering me!”
The first week of Move Into Magic, the course I taught in January, was about clearing space on all levels.
It wasn’t entirely planned that I’d be undergoing a big move exactly then, but as life would have it, this was the perfect chance to walk the talk.
The purge and purification of my possessions was on an Old Testament level.
The results have been, quite frankly, astonishing.
In fact, although my friend Kari Ferrell’s book is titled You’ll Never Believe Me, I keep using that phrase to describe one of its outcomes to friends:
For the first time in 27 years, an old event repeated itself.
Then, almost immediately and just as improbably, an old player who had been pivotal at that time suddenly reached out.
Unprompted, unbidden, and entirely unrelated…Or is it?
Highlighting the theme of this month’s “Yes, And…” meditation HERE, their cryptic email asking if I were open to meeting necessitated exactly that response:
“Yes, And…
it’s been 20+ years—
what’s on your mind?”
Even though they were not specifically asking to meet at a deserted storage warehouse late at night, it seemed entirely reasonable to request more information about their agenda.
My “Yes, And…” response seemed quite appropriate.
I have already focused on how living by the principle of “Yes, And” requires us first to embrace acceptance.
And I’ve also talked about how it’s an invitation to be creative, to stretch our imagination.
This interaction, however, introduced another aspect: using “Yes, And” as a tool to delve deeper and ask “Why?”
It’s both the kind of thing that grade school kids do to torment adults and an accredited MBA technique.
I’m speaking about the “Five Whys” Method developed by industrial engineer and Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno.
It’s a problem-solving technique in which you ask “Why?” five times to get to the root of an issue.
The whole point of it is to move beyond the surface symptoms to get to the true cause of the problem.
As a famous example from Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing:
If the problem is that your car won’t start, you might begin by asking:
1️⃣ Why? → Answer: The battery is dead.
However, in this method, you continue by asking four more “Why?” questions, starting why is “the battery is dead?”
2️⃣ Why? → The alternator isn’t working.
3️⃣ Why? → The alternator belt is broken.
4️⃣ Why? → The belt wasn’t maintained properly.
5️⃣ Why? → There’s no scheduled maintenance system.
It’s worth noting that while you might require even more “Why?” inquiries to get to the root cause of your problem, five is generally considered the minimum necessary to gain clarity.
Obviously, the Five Why’s Method might not be needed for every problem on your to do list.
Yet certainly, when one is either extraordinarily persistent—or, in my personal example, completely blindsided—some “Yes, and why…?” inquiries seem prudent.
It’s all too easy to stop at our first “Why” answer, dusting our palms against one another with a premature “Case Closed” verdict.
All too often, however, the answer to that first Why is a knee-jerk response, often avoiding accountability or even embracing victimhood.
It’s the easiest answer to give, but far from the most useful one.
Indeed, stopping the inquiry too soon might just make the problem worse.
As the adage goes, it’s “what you don’t know you don’t know” that’s the real danger.
Part of the problem is that almost everything in our upbringing focuses on getting to an answer rather than asking more questions.
We’re rewarded for how well we do on standardized tests–and how quickly we perform–not so much on the depth of our curiosity.
Just as fitting the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle can be satisfying, reaching an answer can feel complete; yet sometimes, like stopping at $20 exactly on a gas pump, it’s a meaningless victory.
Most importantly, I think we’re drawn to the sense of completion that answers offer, rather than the uncertainty that questions entail.
I’m reminded, of course, of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:
“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
The “Five Whys” would lead an automotive manufacturer to realize that instead of merely replacing the battery, they actually need to fix the maintenance system to prevent future issues.
The response to my first “Why?” inquiry was met with a vague nod to nostalgia,along with a suggestion that they were contemplating creating an archive.
Again, this perfect synchronicity—and forgive me for not sharing all the historical details, as good manners prevent me from doing so—coincided with the completion of my own above pictured hyper-indexed vault of memories and glassware.
A few more “Yes, And…Why?” inquiries are definitely required before a meeting.
On a final note, I was struck by the thought that the archiving Eric and I were doing—and yes, despite the serial killer scenario, I definitely did NOT murder him—was really laying the foundation for launching.
It might be just whimsy, but I kept thinking I was tucking all these belongings in, letting them hibernate for a while in a tidy bed.
After all, maybe I’m getting more and more comfortable, as Rilke advises, living with the questions.
Increasingly, I’m trying to respond to life’s challenges with “Yes, And…” and to its mysteries with “Yes, And…Why?”
Perhaps, I will “gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer”—but even if I do not, by asking the right “Yes, And…” questions along the way, my journey will have much more meaning and depth and the subtle joy the comes from honoring the mystery.
Namaste for Now
