Just Ask Him, He'll Tell Ya

Just Ask Him, He’ll Tell Ya!

John Derryberry

I believe Don Rickles made the joke; just ask him, he'll tell ya! It was at a roast, and he was getting after Robert De Niro. Rickles says, "De Niro, he's sitting there. He's one of the great actors of our time. You ask him, he'll tell ya." It's one of the many videos of the late great Don Rickles that cracks me up. Mr. Warmth was his nickname, an odd choice for a guy who spent his life insulting everyone. But about once a year, I go to the You Tube rabbit hole and watch a day's worth of Don Rickles videos and just laugh my way into a happy place.

There is truth with Mr. Warmth's humorous line; just ask him. Asking questions is essential to the human connective tissue. We bond over question and answer sessions. We learn insights into how people operate, understand the motive behind their choices, and get to know them on a level where we can build connections. We learn where their strength comes from, why they have weak and blind spots. The problem in a world with Google at our fingertips, we think we can glean the answer to life's human condition through the click of a button. We start to believe people are their social media profiles. We stupidly begin to think the world revolves around us, and asking simple questions of each other is no longer needed.

Knowing a person is a doctor isn't the same as knowing why they became a doctor. Finding out a person is into cooking because they cherished cooking with their granddad is the same as me enjoying watching basketball with my Papa. Yet, we don't go that deep with folks. We think I don't like basketball or I don't find cooking enjoyable so we must not have much in common. The activity is not or never will be the connective tissue between us. It will always be the story of why. To find out the story of why, we must being willing to ask questions, listen, and process. Hopefully, so we can get to the rare last step of allowing their account to adjust our view a smidge.

The worst of this is when we think a person doesn't offer us value, as if finding out about their life story would not add value to ours. We feel that the conversation should be one-sided because we, as great as we are, offer the only part that matters to the relationship— yet, the story of why someone is homeless matters. Being happy for other people can only occur when we have healthy connective tissue between us. Creating that type of bond only happens when we dare to see the value others can add to our lives. We must find out their story; to do that, we must embrace the late great Don Rickles. Just ask them and let them tell you.