Question Everything
I have come to the conclusion that I can at times be an annoying person. I realize that sounds like I’m being a little hard on myself, but it happens to be true. The reason? I tend to ask a lot of questions. I can’t seem to help myself. On a pretty regular basis, I find myself in situations where all kinds of questions start popping into my head, and I can’t seem to stop asking them until I’ve gotten all of the answers I wanted. I’m a little bit compulsive in that regard.
It happened again yesterday when I seeing a new doctor. He finished up the exam, made his diagnosis, and wrote a prescription. The poor guy thought he was done and ready to move on to the next patient when I started. I just couldn’t seem to stop. That salvo of questions came one after another. Why did I have this condition? Was it genetic? Was I doing something wrong? Was the treatment usually effective? How did the treatment work? How long would it take for it to work? I didn’t stop until I noticed him glancing nervously towards the door obviously concerned that he was going to be stuck there indefinitely. He had shown remarkable restraint, and it was plain to see he was at the end of his rope, so I released him and attempted to find the rest of the answers on the Internet.
I have been trying to cut back, but it’s extremely difficult because it’s such a long-standing problem. I can remember sitting in a college classroom many years ago when the professor began to lose patience with all of my questions. I found the course to be particularly interesting so I had chosen a seat in the front row and raised my hand with what must’ve been irritating frequency. He finally looked at me and said, “Here’s how it’s going to work. You get three questions per class, OK?” I sighed heavily and said, “OK.” Then for the next several weeks I stopped asking questions altogether, and he actually got offended. He asked me after class one day what was wrong. I told him that it was almost the end of the semester, and I was saving up all of my questions for the review day. He rolled his eyes and then nodded his head. When that day came he let me ask as many questions as I wanted.
I should add, by the way, that I did ace that course. Sometimes inquisitiveness pays off.