A quick tip before the end of summer vacations. In general, questions starting with “should I” are probably not the best idea.
Most of the time, questions worded that way lean toward a yes or no type of response. And they make us miss alternatives.
Fortunately, they’re usually quite easy to rephrase into a more useful alternative. For instance, instead of asking “should I leave my partner?”, it would certainly be more useful to consider two alternatives, “what would happen if I leave?”, and “what would happen if I stay?”. This simply allows us to see two different points of view instead of one. We can compare them, allowing us to take a more informed decision.
Another point to consider, is that most questions we ask ourselves are not binary, yes or no. By changing them in a form that allows us to consider several alternatives, we might discover that both choices might be good and it’s up to us to pick the one we would find the best. Or both might turn out bad, no easy solution, and here we would be looking for advice on which one would be the least damaging, or even better, that would open us to the idea of asking other proactive question to see how we can turn a situation to some kind of advantage for us.
I’ll give here two examples, one with Lenormand and one with Tarot.
One of my daughters moved to Florida a year ago, and I was considering eventually buying a house over there. I asked two questions. “what would happen if I buy a house in Florida?” is the top line. “What would happen if I don’t buy a house in Florida?” is the bottom line.
For the top line, with the Scythe as focal point, we can see here a real danger. Fish and Scythe show threatening with the finances, the Mountain adding that this would block me from doing other things with that money. This would be an inimical situation.
For the bottom line, Moon shows that it will continue to be part of my dreams, and Ship shows that I’ll have some longing toward getting a house, but I’ll simply continue to travel over there to see these people who are close to me.
Easy choice.
Someone I know is not very happy with his current job and wondering if he should retire. We asked the Tarot two questions “what would happen if Jim continues working?” and “what would happen if Jim retires?”.
If Jim stays, he will continue to complain about it with his colleagues and struggle with his work, waiting for the moment when he’ll finally be ready to leave. That’s what I would call status quo, until something finally pushes him over the edge.
If he retires, he’ll start to scrutinize how well and in power he was, but so much poorer now, trying to make do with the situation he created for himself.
Here, we have two difficult choices, unhappiness looming whatever the direction he takes. I advised him to wait. As least, if he’s unhappy in both cases, money will become the important factor, until he has finally enough of the situation.
Decks: White back Dondorf from Game of Hope Lenormand.
Jean Dodal reproduction, stenciled edition, by JC Flornoy.
