We spend a lot of time in life fighting with each other over our answers, both individually and societally. Those of who think differently than us often become target of our judgment.

But are we placing too much emphasis on the answers in life? Should we, instead, be focusing more on the questions? Answers are what lead to our creations. They become the guidepost for our decisions and thus our creations. But how often are the answers we use in our creations our own answers?

Often we take the answers of others as our own. Answers that become the framework through which we create ourselves.

But with questions, we are forced to decide for ourselves what our answers will be. By focusing on the questions, we become our own creators because we are responsible for our own answers.

Questions are the beginning of the creative process. They force us to look, and re-look at ourselves and the world around us. Questions require us us to reevaluate our previous answers – to look at things differently each time we are presented with new information.

Answers are easy – The creative work has already been done. Answers are lazy – They are where the work stops.

Questions, on the other hand, are where the work begins – They are how we expand our answers and thus our creativity – How we grow and evolve.

We can take the easy and lazy way and create ourselves through the answers – answers of others. Or we can take the difficult way and create ourselves through the questions, which require us to provide our own answers.

Focusing on the questions rather than the answers is really the difference between creating ourselves in our own image or allowing ourselves to be created in the image of others.

One was is easy. The other hard. Whatever way you choose, the creation of you depends on it.

Timothy Velner is a husband, father, attorney and author living in Minneapolis. You can follow his daily blog – a series of discussions between the worry-self and the present-self at – thespiritualgym.me