He looked at the painting on the easel, shook his head
and then asked me: "Where do you get all your ideas from?''
''I don't know, they just come to me. Perhaps it has something
to do with that I often tend to ask ''what if?'' I answered.
''What do you mean?'' he asked.
''Well, whenever I am doing something,
whatever that something may be, it seems I have an inbuilt
''urge'' to ask myself if what I am doing can be done
differently, better, faster, and or more effectively.''
Since then I have realized that my ''what if'' urge is not limited
to ''doing'' only, but also to thinking and feeling.
Examples: ''What if I change the way I think about xyz, will that
change how I feel?''
''What if the way I feel about xyz is a response to having a bad day
and not about what I think of him/her?''
''What if I haven't thought this through enough, as in considered a
number of different possibilities? If I did, would I view it differently?
(At this point you may be wondering about another kind of ''what if'',
as in the ''what if'' that has the added ...''I would have''...
''What if I would have/had not''..... is a totally different creature
and belongs more to the past than the now or the future, so,
bearing in mind that the past can not be changed, I am going to
stick with the ''what if'' that brings us forward.)
In my view, asking ''what if'' stirs our creative juices, helps us
to think laterally, helps us to stay in the domain of possibilities
rather than staying stuck in the same old muck.
According to Stephen King, ''what if'' is always the key question when
it comes to coming up with new ideas, and the reason that the
''what if'' often works so well is that it can stimulate us into
combining ideas in new ways.
(All through the history of mankind there have been people asking:
but ''what if''.... we could fly, go to the moon, split the atom,
prevent deadly diseases, harness energy, etc.etc.etc.)
Us humans are said to be creatures of habit, slow to change,
and hesitant to embrace new ideas.
Asking ''what if'' can be tricky because more often
than not, it opens a door to change.
Unfortunately, change is not something that comes easy for us,
we prefer the predictable to the unpredictable,
the certain to the uncertain,
yet if we want to move ''forward'',
change of some kind is inevitable.
Example: For years you have been expecting your partner to
change his/her habit of leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor.
You have asked nicely, you have asked angrily, yet no change.
It bugs you no end, then one day you ask yourself why it bugs
you so much. (What is it in me that finds the wet towels
such a bother?) What if the wet towels is not the issue?
Suddenly you realize that it is not the wet towels that
bug you, rather, what bothers you is that you feel disrespected
by your partner. You decide to tell your partner how you feel,
he/she listens, apologizes, and promise to do better.
Suddenly, no more wet towels on the floor.
In my experience we can seldom change another person's behaviour,
thoughts, attitudes, and or opinions, we can only change our own.
To do so, it can be really helpful to begin with asking ourselves:
what if I...........
Asking the question ''what if'' can be the beginning
of a wondrous, exciting, and enlightening journey.
About the above image: It began as a photo of plaster-cast statue of a child
holding a basket standing in the middle of a shopping center.
I decided to edit it. What if I removed the background,
what if I changed the basket into a fish, what if drew in a
sketched background, what if I changed the colours,
what if I put the figure next to the ocean, etc.etc.
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