Author: Andrea Grassi

The more time it passes, the more I’m sure about this: good questions are a turn key for many things.

A great question allow people to have a spark in creativity or to go beyond, it can solve problems because of the different point of view inherently included in the question itself.

Most of the time we feel blocked because we don’t know how to handle the problem.
In fact, the thing is that we are blocked because we don’t have the answer to the question “How do I handle this?”

Such question can be rarely answered alone, it takes a few more steps in between to get to a solution, and those steps are essentials.
A way to discover the steps in between are questions.

But how to get a good question to solve a problem?
The first thing is to do small jumps.
There is no “final” questions, so you shouldn’t expect to have an epiphany and find a question that solve the problem in one shot.
What you must aim to is to move incrementally to widen the scope of your knowledge, both by confirming that you understood and moving forward and enlarge what you know.

After a few questions like this the problem will be probably more defined and/or split in subsequent pieces. That way the problem can be handled and solved with no issue.

There are days when I listen to many complains. 

Not that I want to, it just a happens. But what is the value of a complaint if the goal of the complaint is only complaining?

Hardly a complaint can be useful. That’s what sound criticism is for. Complaining on the other side is mainly used to express frustration and given the inherent definition of frustration it rarely leads to a constructive change.

I think we do complain too much. While I understand the need to express our perception of urgency and stress through complaints I also think that we can do more.

Complaining drains energy. It is a force your are submitted to, a force that has power in the individual silence. When you complain you don’t listen.

To avoid complaining is a hard thing but we can start by listening to less complaints and start asking questions.

Asking questions is a undervalued skill.

Good questions lead to answers, if you ask yourself the right questions every time you come nearer to the solution. That’s a great start. When asking non-rethorical questions it’s hard to complain.

Just a small list of this related (or maybe not) to OS

• you learn
• you discover that behind that code, there’s a real human!
• in some cases the kindness of the maintainer is overwhelming
• the code never dies
• you learn and discover new ways to do things
• it’s beautiful when you get some help or when you lend a hand

As a developer I am inclined to search for bugs and fix them.

It’s normal for me to search for the problem, because part of my job is to solve it.

When it comes to real life, though, this may be counterproductive.
Searching for the problem and moving fast to issue a solution isn’t always a good choice.

In life sometimes we just need time.
Maybe we just need to digest the new information, or maybe we have to gain some knowledge and gaining it requires time.

Whatever the issue is, we need time.
Fixing things so fast doesn’t allow me, or other people, to have that time.
I don’t allow them to have their own time because I feel this urgency to fix the problem.

The opposite of this is accepting others.
Understanding the difference and let time to the rest.
Give it time, let it rest, let it grow.

Allow the discussion or the thought to slowly come again into your life with a more mature appearance and then face it again.

One of the things I learned today is about questioning yourself.

If you care to learn, to move forward, you have to accept the fact that you will be wrong, that there will be some stances that won’t be right and that you will have in fact the need to change your opinions.

Your opinions are often different than in reality and as such, you should allow yourself to change, if needed