The ‘Why?’ Kid

How constantly asking ‘Why?’ as a kid made me the curious adult I am — and how it’s helping me investigate burnout

Recently, I was zooming with a friend in the Netherlands whose four-year-old daughter, Zoë, was playing in the background. Zoë is whip-smart and observant, and despite the distance between us — compounded now by the travel restrictions necessitated by the pandemic — I love watching her grow up.

When I mention this, my friend rolls her eyes and smiles.

“She’s going through a ‘why?’ phase right now. She can spend literally hours following me around, asking ‘but why, mommy?’ to every single answer I give, no matter how finite I might think that answer was.”

“Fun times.” I smile. I know exactly how frustrating that must be: because I was the exact same kid.

I describe it as a healthy dose of curiosity — my parents might have described it as utterly maddening. In any event, as a child, I loved asking ‘why’. I loved knowing more, delving deeper, pushing further in order to better understand the fuller picture.

I get that it’s annoying, being asked the same question so many times the term ‘ad nauseum’ takes on new meaning. But as a little kid, it was a simple way of getting more information (and — yes — more attention, positive or otherwise). My parents are intelligent, knowledgeable people, which meant nine times out of ten they would know the answer to the ‘why’. I would nod, taking in the information and then, —

“But why, mommy?”

This intense curiosity has followed me into adulthood. I am wildly curious about a lot of different things, and I’m fascinated by people who are knowledgeable on these topics. I don’t follow these people around in person (there are laws against that) but I read what they write, listen to their podcasts, follow them on socials, and seek to understand their perspective in order to broaden my own.

And as I’m writing my book on burnout, I find myself asking ‘why’ a lot, in order to peel the layers of a topic that becomes more brilliantly complex the more I learn about it. For example:

Why do we burnout?

According to the World Health Organization, due to chronic stress.