Counselor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I could ask you to clarify a point. - James E. Ryan

When faced with difficult conversations or emotionally charged situations, it is always a challenge to pause to ask if you have all of the facts you need to draw fair conclusions. It is easy — too easy — simply to react, often passionately and often based on assumptions rather than facts. Reminding yourself to ask “Wait, what?” is a way to guard against jumping too quickly to conclusions.

Too often we fail to pause for clarification, thinking that we understand something before we do. In doing so, we miss the opportunity to grasp the full significance of an idea, an assertion, or an event. Asking “Wait, what?” is a good way to capture, rather than miss, those opportunities.

Everyone has a unique story. […]

Learning these stories will inevitably enrich your life. It might even lengthen it. Curiosity, it turns out, is conducive to health and happiness, as scores of social scientists have documented. Curious people, not surprisingly, are likely to learn more and to retain more of what they learn. Curious people are likely to be more attractive to others, as people are attracted to those who seem interested in them. Curiosity also leads to empathy, an emotion that seems in short supply today. Curious people are likely to be healthier, and to experience less anxiety in particular, because they see new situations as an opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity to realize that they don’t know enough. Curious people are also, according to some studies, likely to live longer, presumably because they are more engaged with the world around them.