Why vs. What now?

I was a senior in high school, and in a hurry. The car I usually drove, a little Chevy Citation, was parked at the end of my parent’s driveway. I was in our big, black van. At the time, cars didn’t have sensors and cameras on the back, so there was no warning before I smashed the back of our van right into the front of the Citation. I had made history at that moment—no other child in our family ever wrecked two cars at once.

Believe me, it wasn’t a badge of honor.

Several years later, I was newly married. Still young and confident, I backed our Honda Civic into cars repeatedly. Yes, I said repeatedly. One time, I hit another car in the parking lot of our apartment complex right after we had fixed the bumper from the last accident I caused. Stunned and hopeless, I laid my head on the steering wheel and asked WHY?? Why did this keep happening?

It was a good question that I needed to answer. And as I sat crying in the front seat, I finally admitted to myself that I was backing up too quickly—too recklessly. Asking why and then answering that question was difficult. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. I was driving badly, and costing us a fortune that we didn’t have. I was embarrassed. But I also realized that I could (and wanted to!) change. I slowed way down and I don’t back into cars anymore, thankfully.

However, there are times when we ask why, and it’s not a helpful question.

When Landon knocked out his front tooth at 9 years old, I constantly asked WHY? Why had I let him play on the playground? Why had I run errands before his soccer game? Why did this happen to him? Why couldn’t the dentist have saved his tooth? Why? WHY?? In contrast to the first situation, there were no good answers to my questions. He played as all 9-year-old boys do. I ran errands as all mothers do. The dentist did his very best. The whys here offered no insight, no illuminating perspective—only frustration. Truthfully, the whys I kept asking were turning into why-ning very quickly.

WHY-ning.

It’s a thing.

In this case, a better question to ask is what now?

Sometimes things happen that are hard and don’t make sense. I asked a lot of whys when my dad got sick and never recovered. I spent a good amount of time WHY-ning when Brian’s job in Utah fell through and we moved to Texas instead, and then again about my daughter’s hair loss. I why-ed about a lot of things that were happening in my life. Not surprisingly, nothing good came from this. I did feel like garbage…like I was a helpless magnet for all the crap.

I wanted something different. I tried a new question.

What now?

In an instant, I left my victimhood and felt empowered. I couldn’t change a lot of circumstances in my life, but I could definitely decide how I was going to move forward. Asking what now opened my eyes to possibilities that I hadn’t seen.

Why can be an enlightening question, but it can also turn into why-ning. The way to differentiate is to look at what you’re creating in your life. Are the whys helping you move into a better version of yourself, or are they keeping you stuck in a victim mentality? Be truthful when you answer the why questions. Is there something you can do better or are you simply throwing a pity party?

Today, maybe you could give all the whys a rest and ask a new, better question.

What now? Seriously—what now?