The Real Matrix… Part 2

“It’s the question that drives us.” –Trinity

In my post “the ‘Real” Matrix, Part 1”, I pointed out how language is the Matrix we all live in and that we are very easily fooled into thinking that words we use to represent something will somehow be the same as direct experience.

Here I am talking about another layer to the Matrix, one that again is so obvious it is invisible to most of us most of the time. That is the consideration (or lack thereof) of the intentional generation of context. It can be easy to forget that without context, nothing has any meaning at all and that without the awareness of the context we are generating for ourselves, we are at the whim of whatever context we are operating in as though it is the only possible reality.

A Question is the most powerful way I know of generating and setting context. A question sets the point of reference we consider any other information we are presented with. It has a way of deleting whole swaths of information in an instant and bringing new ones in.

Those who operate within the Matrix of language with the utmost skill and efficacy are those who get that the key to being able to really having the life they want know it’s all about the questions they ask in any given situation.

This is because a question is generative. Answers serve as relevant information that work in relationship to a question that has been asked, or as I am saying, a context that has been generated.

When it comes to having the life they most want, many people are looking for a good answer- the right answer, a solid answer, an answer that if they could only get to… would change their life in such a way they would finally have it. They are doing all kinds of things now in order to get to have it… ‘someday’… for instance perhaps after they “retire”.

Many people allow questions that have been asked already, or poorly thought out to remain as the only point of reference for them to work within. One such example is, “my business or my life?” This sort of question drives many go to work so they can have their “life” later- whether that be at the end of the day, the week, the year or their entire working lives.

This example is one that I think everyone who asks it or some variation of it, should reconsider.  This sort of question sets up a potential lifetime of limitation because it sets up a context of there having to be an either or choice.

Consider that if you ask the most successful people in this world… and by successful I mean having a life that is deeply fulfilling and meaningful as well as one that is at materially successful… none of them ask a question like that.  Instead, they ask, “how can I have my business AND my life?” If you ask them about the concept of retirement, it makes no sense. Why would they ever want to retire from doing what is fulfilling and meaningful to them?

In other words…

The answers you have can only be in relationship to the quality and type of questions you ask.

What really makes this distinction useful though are the types of questions you can ask yourself at any given moment. Are they questions organized around limitation or possibility?

For example, instead of asking a question organized around limitation like “my business or my life?”,  what answers begin to emerge when you ask a question organized around possibility like- “how can I have both?”

Now you can ask, “how can that question be the fundamental question I ask myself in any situation? Even when I am not “consciously” aware of it?

What would be possible?

Tags: answers, business, context, drive us, life, questions