It doesn’t hurt to ask
As a researcher, sometimes the hardest thing to do is ask a question. But that’s your job. Ask questions, find answers, write about them. That’s the deal. But the sheer force required to move a question from my mind into my stomach and then out through my mouth seems at times nearly impossible. I have, for the last year, been terrified of going to office hours to speak with professors for one of two reasons. (1) I did not have good questions and 2) I did not have the answers to my questions. I know, (2) seems obvious. But in reality, a researcher is expected to have a hypothesis–a presumed answer to a question. In my mind this naturally extends into professional meetings and it has, at times, crippled me.
But my questioning ability is on the up and up.
I have staggered and tripped over a topic for this damn thesis for months. Finally, I asked the coalition of community groups I work with what they think I should research. And, to my surprise, they told me. They gave me lists of questions and curiosities, ideas and frustrations. But to my surprise, what relieved me the most was not that they gave me answers, but that they gave me space; that nearly obsessive wandering could suddenly be transformed into dialogue–and one in which we all admitted to not knowing how to proceed
And it is true that the asking does not hurt. What does hurt, however, is that time between the question and the answer; the time during which your vulnerability, ignorance and true feelings are exposed and circulating through phone lines and airspace, waiting to land. That period of time could damn near kill a girl.
I feel you on this. I just recently realized the old mark twain addage. In my line, you have to be asking people not only questions, but for favors on a consistant basis. I’m getting more and more into the idea of the squeeky wheel and also just a deeper knowing that people want to be asked questions, they want to share their expertise…it makes them feel really good, maybe even better than the questioner recieving the hoped-for answer..because people really do like to help eachother. It took me three years to aks a certain person for her help and she was like “what took you so long?!”